Your Environment
This entry is inspired from this post on Reddit a while back:
The OP says: “How do I get it through my skull that being better, that achieving goals, that working harder, that stopping procrastination and making something of myself are desirable goals? My environment has always been full of the opposite.”
This one’s tough. Yes, we’ve all heard that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their five closest friends, or simply put, you just know what someone is like based off of who they spend time with. Personally, I didn’t always have the best friends at all stages of my life growing up, but I’ve always had a solid family and parents to lift me up. Even with that though, at some level, there are certain things we want to do in our lives that we only want to do with friends, and I’ve found two ways to make this work.
First, we have to surround ourselves with people who share our interests who are also likeminded. What I mean by that is, everyone says if you want to make friends, join a club that is dedicated to your hobby. So if you like rock climbing, join a rock climbing gym. Yes, that’s great advice, but I think the inherent assumption there is that you also need to find people at that climbing gym who also share your same qualities. You want people who will encourage you not only to be a better rock climber, but also a better person. It’s not like if you join a rock climbing gym, all of the sudden, the entire personnel will be flocking to you to be your BFF. In OP’s example, find the folks at the climbing gym who encourage you and motivate you to stop procrastinating and work harder. I know it sounds cliché, but although the biggest step is getting into the climbing gym in the first place, the journey doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t mean that all of the sudden, you are going to have a tight inner circle. You still have to find those folks who share your interests and motivation. There are people who will bring you down in all areas of life, and the metaphoric rock climbing gym here is no example, so you have to find the good people who will be your friend.
Now, with that said, we’re not always successful in finding those friends even when we’re searching. Sometimes, we just don’t click with the folks at the rock climbing gym. So that leads to the second point. You have to just be the catalyst and leader in your group sometimes. Let me give you an example. I love blogging, no matter how terrible I am at it. Do I have any blogger friends in my group? No, I don’t. Does that mean I don’t blog? No, it means I have an interest in something and I know that my close friends do not, so I have to be the catalyst for change. My example is a bit different – I’m not having trouble with procrastination and people aren’t bringing me down, but nobody is really pushing my to blog aside from myself. I have to consciously make the effort to blog because it’s all 100% on me. And I haven’t met other bloggers through blogging either. BUT! Now that I’ve started, some close friends and family ask questions about it, and it pushes me to do it more. Their mere interest in asking me how the blog is going is enough for me to keep going. It’s a very positive and perpetuating cycle. If you translate this to the gym, those closest to you will see your results, and start asking you questions about your transition and that will be motivating in itself. Trust me on that one.
I want to take a second to mention the most important point. I want to let you know that once you have that encouragement, it never really leaves you. I’ll give you another example from my personal life. The other guy in that photo with me is my best friend. He’s one of the main reasons I ever jumped into lifting in the first place. We were skinny, freshman year kids at school (probably 120 lbs soaking weight), and we started setting goals to go to the gym. We spent a couple of summers going almost every day – these are some of the happiest memories of my life. We live in two different cities now, but I text him almost every time I am in the gym, and I still get the same, motivational feeling to do better, hit new PRs, and get stronger, even though we’re not going together like we did those summers back in school. What I’m saying is, once you’ve built the circle of support and encouragement, it lays a solid, concrete foundation for you to build off of. Never forget that. Now go out there and start building your foundation, even if it means setting it yourself. You got this.
Shane
