The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success. The people who we influence us when we’re young, and who we allow to influence us when we get older, have a lot of power. Your influences can impact your success in life. It’s therefore important to understand whose influence to follow and whose to avoid. The following contributed post is entitled, Choosing Who You Want To Be In Life: The Influences.
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You only get one life, so you have to live it. Those are the words we hear all too frequently when it comes to our actions and lives. But yet do we really take those matters into our own hands? The truth is, when it comes to life, be that our careers, our relationships and the choices we make for the things we do, we are often influenced. Sometimes we seek out the influence and the inspiration, other times we simply don’t see it happening under our very noses. There is nothing wrong with being influenced, as long as we can say at the end of the day the choice that was made was done with our own best interests at heart. With that in mind, here is a little discussion around some of the influences we can all face today.
Influences from family
When it comes to choosing the life that you want one of the biggest influences in your life will be your family. This might be fathers or mothers wanting you to go into the family business, or it might be parents just wanting better things for you and then pushing you in a particular direction. While we don’t always want to hurt our families feelings, it can be hard to stand up to them if you have a different journey you want to take. You might also want to be aware that often conflict between families when it comes to business can happen, people like Belinda Stronach has shared some of the issues that she’s faced with her family. It happens, and while they will be a big influence in your life, they won’t be the only voice that matters.
Social media influence
So many people use social media these days, and often a big 70% of people will check their social media feeds at least once a day. So that means that you are being influenced by what you see before you even realise it. There is a lot about people sharing things online these days, and there is a lot of perfection put out there. This is where you get influenced into doing something, buying something or acting in a certain way. It’s part of lives now, and we don’t realise how much of an impact social media has on it.
Peer pressure
You will be influenced by your peers. Fact! At school you are influenced by acting in a certain way, from the phrases that you say to the things that you do. In work, you will still beindluecc by peers and work colleagues that are doing well in their field. It is there all the time, but this is when it can feel like peer pressure, so it is important to understand when it is a positive or a negative influence on your actions.
What we see on TV or in films
Finally, we are influenced by what we watch. People will watch a boxset on law, only to want to be that person or do that job. People will watch a documentary about living in a certain part of the world, only to want to live there. Holidays get shared on TV, what people wear, what people think. It is impossible to not be influenced by it.
Let’s hope this has made you more aware of the influences in your life.
