Without this realization, sometimes people just let friends come into their lives and unknowingly allow them to shape their behavior, character and even destiny ! Of course you cannot be judgmental on people who want to become your friends. However, you have to have a certain level of control of who and what you should allow into your world because they do affect your level of success. So, while sometimes you do not want to be too choosy of who should be your friends, you should draw lines where your friends can influence you and make this clear to them very early in the friendship.
Let us see how much friends can influence us. Take the example of two people who exercise together. One goes to the gym with friends and the other person exercises alone. I am certain you will agree with me if I say that the person at the gym will be more easily motivated. Furthermore, for him, exercise can even be fun because he is doing it with friends. Not only that, they can also advise each other by comparing notes of their knowledge and experience. Of course the outcome of their exercise will determine a lot on the quality of the knowledge and experience they exchange. However, the likelihood of them doing well is a lot higher because they have a bigger pool of knowledge and experience.
When you compare to the person who exercises alone, he most likely will have a hard time to motivate himself and more likely to even give up. Of course there those special individuals who can be successful at this alone but these individuals are rare. Most people need the encouragement and support to go forward with major efforts like exercising, taking care of our health and nutrition, going into business etc. Unless you are a highly goal driven individual, you will need people around you to give you the right push to go forward.
As I have mentioned earlier, the quality of outcome depends on the quality of knowledge and experience of your friends'. This is the reason you must choose your friends. Underachievers will at best give you advice and opinion that are consistent with their mediocrity. Of course, your highly driven and energetic performers will give suggestions within the realm of their thinking patterns, habits as well as beliefs. There is no doubt that they will impact the quality of outcome, either way.
Conversely, I am sure you have seen or heard friends who tried to discourage you from doing good things. There is a simple explanation for this phenomenon. We all like the familiar. We know and have learnt to deal with the familiar and resist changes even though sometimes we know the change is for the better. When a friend is making changes you will need to deal with something new. You will naturally fear not being able to deal with this 'new development' that will certainly upset the status quo. The bigger the change the more the fear and the harder you will resist. As such you will naturally, try to achieve balance by ensuring this change does not occur even if it means stopping your friend's progress. I must add, most of the time, this happens at the unconscious level, and our friend does not even realize he is trying to stop your personal growth.
The worst thing about this is, mediocre people will most likely introduce you to other average performers (or if you are really not careful even losers). If one person can influence your outcome, imagine the effect of say ten people on your life. On the flip side, the good news is success will attract success. So, if you choose high achievers as you inner circle of friends, the quality of your outcome will tremendously skyrocket. They will not only inspire you, but also give quality advise and best of all introduce you to other people of the same caliber. So how do you create this kind of quality circle ? Easy, start with one person you know who is a high achiever. Then start to model his habits and behaviors. Needless to say, when he likes you, access to his circle of friends will be a matter of fact you can take for granted. From my personal experience as well as those high performers I have came across with, within weeks or months, you will start to experience different outcomes in your life.
So what do you do with "bad" friends ? Well, the choice is all yours. If they are truly your friends, giving them a helping hand should be expected you you once you have raised the standard of your life. Surely it is not you job to change them if they resist. The best you can do for them is to still have them as friends but not as part your inner circle of people who will chart you future.
Remember, you are actually the sum total of the expectations, experiences, knowledge and habits of the people around you. They can be your ally in achieving your objectives or your biggest enemies guarding your gate to success vigilantly.
