If you are a parent of any school-age children, you will know the influence of your child's friends that have on your child. You will see daily as they come home from school the beliefs, behaviour and even mannerisms that they pick up from the children at school. If you can, you will be counselling your child in making good choices about who they associate with and who they play with in the school ground during free time. You will also remember the powerful influence that your peers had on you as you were at school.
Do you think about the influence that your current friends have on you now? Who you are friends with will play a great part in ultimately who you are. So too will your relationships change with your friends as you begin to work on your own success and your own life. You will likely find that some relationships are toxic to you and you will no longer be even able to handle the stream of negative opinions that are shared by these people.
Don't stress;-). Just calmly change the subject. If that doesn't work, end the conversation by thanking them and then move on, you will be very busy with your other work. Slowly, you will associate less and less with them. It doesn't have to be a painful breakup with them.
You will be developing new skills for making new friends and associating with more like-minded people. I have a very interesting book on my shelf called 'The recruiting process' by Sherle Adams and Marlin Hershey and in the very front of the book Marlin Hershey puts down some comments from when he met Sherle Adams. Marlin says that he was really looking forward to meeting Sherle Adams because she is such an interesting and wise person and so he interviews her in a car for some reason and from the moment that he gets in the car, Sherle Adams is interviewing him, asking his opinion, gathering his wisdom until Marlin is almost at the end of the interview and he realises that Sherle Adams has been interviewing him! This is what wise people do! I have found a few people who do this at conferences and also board meetings.
Every morning as I am dropping my kids off for school, I listen to a particular radio station and at about the time that I am driving back to my home office, they have a segment of the program where they share famous positive words of wisdom, called inspirational corner. All three presenters make it their business to share a famous quote each morning. The quote this morning from one of the presenters was from an anonymous source and it goes like this 'Everything you are telling me now is telling me something about you'. Of course this works both ways in terms of what you say in conversation and what others say in conversation. Don't be discouraged if you find yourself engaged in negative discussion, you will catch yourself out;-) just try to improve day by day. Also know and remember that on the whole people are good and that they will want to help you if they can and if you give them the opportunity to do so.
About this Author
Remember, you don't need to break up with anyone or hurt anyone in this process of improving your circle of friends. You only need to change your own actions and choices. [http://www.seachangetoday.com] Judith Symonds PhD.
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