The Mindset Junkie: How our environment shapes our behaviour

I asked myself the question: ‘Is my environment helping me move forward or is it holding me back?’

So many times we are unaware of this simple concept butw how important it is in influencing how you think, feel and behave is crucial and it is one of the fastest ways of improving your own mental state of mind and, ultimately, results in life.

You’ve probably heard the saying; ‘you are the product of the five people that you surround yourself with’ - a quote attributed most often to motivational speaker Jim Rohn. It’s a very common concept and I believe it’s true!

Who we surround ourselves with can play a huge part in our outcomes. If we aren’t aware of this, it can have a negative influence on you without you ever realising it.

Our external environment is a representation of our internal environment and if we really want to change our results in life it starts with us.

We have control over our own internal environment and what or who is allowed to influence it.If we do not take control of that consistently by guarding what we allow into our minds, we see ourselves a lot of the time repeating the same processes, getting the same results in life, and feeling like we are a victim of circumstances.

We are not victims of anything but ourselves; to the image we hold of ourselves; to the standards we set for ourselves and to the discipline and desire we have to create something different for ourselves.

“Without doubt the most common weakness of all human beings is the habit of leaving their minds open to the negative influence of other people “ (Napolean Hill). ‘Where attention goes energy flows, where energy flows it expands and grows’.

What are you giving your focused attention to right now and is it serving you? Who and what are you allowing to influence your mind right now and is it serving you? You might look at what is going on in the world right now, how can I control that? You can’t, but you can control your response to it and how you want to feel about it all, as that is a conscious choice you make daily, whether you are actually conscious of this or not.

I don’t watch the news I haven’t watched the news in years because it doesn’t serve me. I choose not to allow that into my mind. I know how easy our minds can be influenced and conditioned especially with the emotional impact of fear.

I am fully aware of all that is going on in the world but I choose not to dwell on things that I can’t control right now, and focus on the things that I can control that help me my family, the ones I love and who I coach and serve. So I consciously choose my own environment, I choose the kind of environment I surround myself with physically but more importantly internally, in my own mind.

Our minds are like a garden and our thoughts are the seeds. What we plant is our choice, but we do plant it, so are we planting seeds of positivity, optimism, health, prosperity, or otherwise?

Like a garden it doesn’t care what seed we plant in it, it will nurture it and help it grow.

We do the same by the energy we give to our thoughts over and over again. Unconsciously a lot of us are hardwiring the things we don’t want in our lives, simply by not taking control of what we are allowing to influence us. Once we realise how much power we have inside our own minds and how it impacts almost every single thing we do, we automatically become more conscious of it.

We should protect it and guard it, and we should take conscious control of how we influence it in a more positive way to bring us more positive results and outcomes of the experiences that we do want to see moving forward.