Your Friends Determine Your Destiny

We all desire social interaction.

A person who has good friends usually live longer and healthier lives than one who is generally isolated from social interactions.

Friends can improve your mood, play a significant role in providing advice when you are making major decisions, yet friendships are not as carefully chosen as partner relationships in most instances!

There is the belief that once you have a friend, or at least if you consider someone your friend, they have your best interest in mind. Sadly, this isn’t always the case and we often learn this only through painful experiences that lead us to be wiser in the future.

In no way am I trying to be ominous or negative, but I have learnt to consider the circle of friends I surround myself with as they do have a tremendous impact on my life, whether I am consciously or unconsciously aware of it.

Have you ever had a friend that is always negative and seeing only the worst in each situation? After a while, if you had an optimistic outlook, in most instances, you start to feel depressed and may wonder where this originates from and it is simply this, they are constantly in your space and their moods do affect you!

If you want to achieve your goals, surround yourself with persons who are already where you want to be! Doing so inspires and encourages you along the way.

Now I am not saying all your friends have to be doing such. However, even if they aren’t, it is important that you have friends around you, who want to see you do well, cheer you on and support you in doing so.

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Our friends can determine our destiny as they can demotivate, discourage and dissuade from goals and desires, especially when the goals are beyond the limits of our limited human minds!!! Which is the way we should approach goals.

I was challenged recently as I felt a slump in some projects I undertook and my mentor encouraged me to look at my friends!

I felt that time should be spent on sharpening focus, reaching out to new clients. Yet eventually I decided to accept the recommendations and explore the close circle of persons around me. As I did, sadly I recognized that they expected nothing positive for their lives and I had also begun to have this outlook slowly creep into my inner mind space.

Now while they are all great people in their own right, I recognized that I need to be selective in what I share and with whom I share.

Paying attention to your friends, is no way indicative that you are better than them or that you don’t struggle with the same thing. It simply means that you are aware that though you struggle, you want to keep the focus on goals and moving forward positively.

Friends can determine your destiny by:

Being envious and jealous of you discovering your purpose and they being unaware of theirs.

There are many persons in society who don’t know who they are and what they want to do with their lives. When you start to learn and develop self-awareness and purposefulness, not all the persons in your circle of friends will be happy about this, therefore it is wise to choose who you share your personal growth journey with.

Not wanting you to succeed more than them

Your friends may love and support you, once you don’t do better than them. In such cases, it is clear, they are really not your friends, so consider listening to what the persons in your close circle say next time you achieve something great. It will determine who are truly your friends!

Wishing to have the life you have

Sometimes people surround you, because somehow they believe by doing so they can have your life. I am not referring to mentorship, that is totally different. There are persons who will surround you simply to pluck whatever resources you have to use for themselves only in a selfish manner.

Trying to dissuade you from your goals

The goals referred are positive goals, that point you in the direction of your dreams and achieving such. When you have persons around you, who constantly tell you all the reasons why it can’t work, it is important to consider how much you would continue to share and value their opinion.

Offering negative statements only

No matter what you are doing, or going to do, they are filled with only ominous predictions over it. This has an impact on you and it would be wise to carefully consider what you share, or even if you should have persons around you, who only can predict gloom and doom.

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While there are persons who can impact your destiny negatively, there are friends who are truly great friends…Here’s how you will know them.

Positive Encouragement

They see the good in the worse of situations and spur you on from the sidelines, encouraging you to not give up when the difficult moments come.

Supporting each other in discovering and living out your life purposefully

Many persons desire to find purpose in life and walk in the direction of such. Your friends can sometimes see your abilities and talents that you don’t see yourself and push you in the direction of such.

Challenges you to become a better version of yourself everyday

Life is a journey, and becoming a better person each day, requires deliberate and purposeful habit steps in that direction. With a good friend you can share a struggle and aid you in accountability towards improving in the area.

Be there in the good and difficult times to offer support genuinely

There are some people you see only in the good times and as soon as it gets rough they disappear. A true friend stands with you in both good and bad times, and when the tough times come, they point you to the light and rejoice when good times are there.

Respect each other values and beliefs

Friendship is not about having a sameness in all areas of life, but caring enough to respect differences in values and beliefs to one’s self.

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It is important to remember that in all what we look for in a friend, we must offer similar, else it would be a relationship where one gains at the benefit of the other all the time.

So I challenge you to examine the friends around you, listen to what they say, listen to what you say to them also, and be mindful that your friends, can and do play a role in determing your destiny…so choose wisely!! And be the friend also, others would want to have!

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This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.

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