Just like how a young sapling needs an ideal environment with enough water, sunlight, and air to grow its best, we as individuals need an ideal surrounding so that we come out as our best selves. The environment we live in, the kind of company we keep, and the words we keep hearing have a great impact on how our brain functions and on our level of motivation.
“We are what we see, we are a product of our surroundings”
– Amber Valetta.
No matter how much hard work you put into your work, how motivated and disciplined you tend to be if your surroundings are negative or just not positive enough, your desired results will remain a faraway dream. When we head on towards a tough goal, the difficulties will be just as tough to overcome. On such days, it is normal to feel hopeless and demotivated.
We are all human beings and it is not possible to stay just as motivated every day. On such days we need to be in a surrounding filled with positivity. Encouragement from people around you, or having positive words around that remind you why you started walking towards the goal and root for you to achieve it acts as an instant mood changer.
If the right surroundings can push you to do your best, negative surroundings can also push you away from your goals and make you feel like it’s the end of everything.
How do the surroundings influence your lifestyle and success?
- Type of company
Being around health-conscious people influences you to eat healthily and stay active, while being around people with unhealthy eating habits may influence you to indulge in more junk food.
Being in a friend group of smokers may influence a non-smoker to start smoking and vice-versa.
If the people around you are judgemental, over time you take on their judgemental nature as well. In case you are around accepting people, you may take away those good qualities from them.
- Gadgets
Your devices are a part of your environment since you spend most of your time with them. Your screen time decides your productivity, the amount of time you waste scrolling through social media or watching shows, and how much you invest in your academics and work.
3. Your daily routine
The habits you practice religiously every day, shape your character. Your sleep-wake cycle, food habits, activity level, time management, and what you choose to spend your energy on, all are major deciding factors that can promote or restrict your growth. It is essential to lead a disciplined life since it plays a huge role in your success or failure.
- The words and signs you have around you
Take a look at the words you see around you. Do they motivate you towards your goal or have no impact at all?
What you read or see daily influences your mind to function in a particular way.
It is important to surround yourself with positive words and images that uplift your mood and keep it directed towards your goals.
5. Your family and friends
Do they support your dreams or try to pull you away from them? Having supportive people who encourage you to work towards your goal is very important. Since the road to success is already so troublesome, it is better to have help hands that uplift you than those that stop or drag you back. Negativity, after all, is easier to absorb than positivity.
However headstrong we try to be about our decisions and dreams, our surroundings subconsciously influence our thoughts and actions in the longer run. We may not always have an option to change our surroundings, but we do have an option to make changes in our surroundings. We can choose what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
We can decide the kind of company we want to be in and the kind we want to avoid. We can surround ourselves with words and glimpses that act as subtle reminders to keep us motivated toward our respective goals. Your surroundings are the key to your success and being in a positive surrounding that nurtures your goals rather than being in one that hinders your success, is very important.
In the end, we must keep in mind that “entire water of the sea can’t sink the ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can’t pull you down unless you let it get inside of you.”