Improved Lives

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One of the things I find most troubling about any kind of personal growth is the focus on the personal part. This inward focus is contradictory to the realities of personal growth, which, if looked at carefully, shows that personal growth has a lot to do with our external world, and especially the people around us.

Here are just a few examples of what I’m talking about:

• How to be a Genius at Anything – Research has shown that the people who are at the very top of their field, whichever field that may be, almost always had extremely important mentors and support groups to help them get there. They didn’t get to the top of their field themselves, they had help.
• Contagious Happiness – There has been some fascinating research done which shows that happiness, depression, obesity, and even eating habits are all ‘contagious’ within social groups. So for example if your spouse or significant other were to become obese, there is a roughly 40% chance that you will become obese too.

Clearly, to achieve anything worthwhile in life we not only have to rely on those around us, we have to make sure that the people we surround ourselves with are the kind of people we want rubbing off on us.

I think there are a few lessons we could take from this:

1. Evaluate your social network – Take a long, hard look at the people that are closest to you in your social network. Are they positive people? Do they support and encourage you? Do they lead the kind of lifestyle you want to lead?
2. Trim your social network – Inevitably, you will have to remove people from your social network because they’re not good for you or your personal growth. I was lucky in that the first time this happened to me, the people who were holding me back removed themselves from my social network. Once I saw the change, I knew it had been something I should have done myself long before that. After that, it was easy to decide which friends and loved ones I should distance myself from, and which ones I should become closer with.
3. Build your social network – One of the great things about becoming aware of how important people are to personal growth is that you become consciously aware of what kind of people you want to add to your social network. Think of your personal growth and your social network like a company. You want to get the best, the brightest, the most positive people you can find for your company so that it flourishes and grows. If you just give whomever comes along a place in your company, it doesn’t have a very good chance of doing well. Your social network is no different. If you don’t closely evaluate the people you choose to let in to your social network, there’s no telling what kind of effect they’ll have on your personal growth.

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