Choose Your Circle Wisely: The Impact of Influence

Let’s chat about the power of association and why it matters so much who we spend our time with.

Our friends and acquaintances significantly influence our physical health, mindset, worldview, income level, relationships, and more.

There’s a popular saying that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with, and there’s truth to it—birds of a feather flock together.

Achieving our goals becomes much tougher if our peers have opposing aims. For instance, if you want to be healthy but your friends prefer sedentary activities, guess which kinds of restaurants and activities they’ll choose. When everyone orders burgers and fries, your choice of a chicken salad might get laughed at, and over time, this can wear down your resolve.

Conversely, surrounding yourself with friends who value fitness and healthy living will encourage you to adopt similar habits.

This influence extends to other areas like mindset, financial habits, spiritual health, and more. That’s why choosing your friends wisely is so important, and it’s reinforced repeatedly in scriptures.

Proverbs 13:20 says…

“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

Personally, I love being around people who are fitter, wiser, wealthier, more spiritually mature, or more successful than me. Their positive influence keeps me from settling and helps me stretch, grow, and achieve more.

A classic example of negative peer influence comes from a 1950s experiment by psychologist Solomon Asch. College students were asked to identify matching lines on cards. When alone, they always chose the obviously correct answer. But when surrounded by actors giving wrong answers, 75% of students eventually conformed to the  obviously incorrect group choice, showing how powerful peer pressure can be.

So, who’s influencing you? Are they encouraging you towards your goals in faith, marriage, parenting, health, finances, and service to others? What are you reading, watching, and listening to?

It all matters. Choose your tribe wisely. Thank you for being part of our tribe!

Until next time...

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Was this helpful? Have a suggestion for future content? I’d love to hear from you. Will you please consider reaching out by way of email, or even better, one of my favorite messaging platforms… Facebook Messenger or Instagram Messenger, letting me know how this may have impacted you and sharing any suggestions you may have for future topics that you’d like me to share on?
With Much Appreciation, Allan