Surround yourself with support.
We live in a world where people preach that we need to support one another yet we are surrounded by people that are still trying to put us down and stunt our growth and belittle our success. A lot of times we don’t even realize that we are being influenced by such people as we still think that because of their closeness to us that they must still want the best for me and that their thoughts and comments are continuing to be made in our best interests.
That notion is far from true.
Support begins with someone looking at you for who you are and supporting you in making decisions that, though they may be hard and not what we want to hear, are in our own best interests. As humans we are in a constant state of growth. We face changes, we struggle, and we should always be attempting to do our best. People that we surround ourselves with should be understanding of this and should take the time to be a part of that influence in a positive way. However, we are always going to be faced with people that though they think they are good friends and positive influences in our life they will allow us to fail by not supporting the actual goals we make for ourselves. As a friend you can’t tell someone that the choices they are making are always in their best interests just because those choices that are being made in that momement are making them happy. Especially when we know that those aren’t the right choices for them and are going to fill them with regret and remorse later on.
Don’t get me wrong there is no changing someone’s free will.
However, if you spend time talking with your close friend about how they need to quit shopping, start eating healthy, increase their exercise, or cut back on partying and then at their weakest moment enforce, promote, or justify their reasoning for why they suddenly need to buy that purse or go balls to the wall binge drinking then you are not supporting their growth. Say something like “Everyone has a momement of weakness, you’ll get back on track” or “try not to let your stress triggers mess up your goals”. You should not reinforce something that you know is a struggle for that person. We DON’T promote things that will bring the people we love harm.
This doesn’t mean we should condone them for their weaknesses either.
We are human. We make mistakes. We struggle. No one said life was easy.
As we are going through life working on reaching our goals and life aspirations we are always going to have setbacks, moments of weakness, and times where we go back on everything that we said we would never do. We make decisions that will hurt us, and the ones we love around us because we are human. We are always battling the changes and goals we make for ourselves when we are tying to break habits and become better people. The people around us should support us. We should have the influences of people that care about us that will try to keep us on the right path even when we stray from what we really want. We should always be trying to be better. We should be better for God first and foremost, better for ourselves, better for our husbands and wives, and better for our family and friends.
In the pursuit of bettering ourselves, the people that surround us should be supportive in our undertakings and goals and help guides us to our destination. They should not promote our setbacks but should show excitement and support for what we have or are working on achieving.
The take away:
- Get support and be supportive.
- Everyone has his or her own battles and goals.
- Success is found in your desire for change and in the support system you’ve built around yourself.
- Encourage and celebrate the people that you love!