A Massively Overlooked Factor in Our Psychological Wellbeing

I'd like to talk about a massively overlooked factor aspect in developing positive well-being, feeling good about ourselves. And that is the influences of those around us. Or a better way to think about it is the people we surround ourselves with, or the influences we surround ourselves with. A question to start off here is, who do you hang out with? Who is influencing your life right now? And when I'm talking about that, I'm not just talking about, we know more obviously who are the people that are influencing me. But another big thing we have to think about nowadays of course is, what are the virtual influences in my life? You know, they say that thing about you become the five people you surround yourself with. And I think there's a lot of truth in that. One of the things I see now is that, you know, a person might be spending five hours online consuming content, movies, videos, videos like this one maybe. But I'll talk about that. But you know, that's five hours. And if we think that that is not going to have an influence on us, I think we're very mistaken about that. So this is a huge, huge factor. We can be going into therapy, we can be doing all sorts of positive things. We can work on ourselves, we can work on our self-talk, we can look at our limiting beliefs, we can work on our boundaries, develop in self-trust. But if we're constantly having these negative, well not negative influences as such, but not the type of influences that will be best for us, that's a huge factor. We really need to talk about that I think. Another way to think about this is, you know, we all know that as children in our childhood we can be very, very influenced by other people. And that's very, very true. But are we still being influenced by other people? I think it would be naive of us to think that that's not the case. So it's my view that the virtual influences, the people in our lives, they have a massive influence on us. And there's a huge opportunity if we can come to terms with, yep, this is having a big impact on my life. And it's something I'm going to start to take more interest in, and I'm going to start to make better decisions in my life around this issue. For instance, some people I've worked with in therapy will be making some really good progress working on those triggers that we all have. And if the environment that that person is in is one in which they're constantly being triggered again and again by the people in their lives, we have to ask ourselves, okay, we can continue to do this work, but we also need to look at, well, what are our boundaries like here? Do we need some space away from this? Do I need to change these, this environment in which is continually triggering me? Working on our triggers is very, very possible. It's really important work to do. But if we're in a situation where we're constantly being triggered and re-triggered, it's very, very difficult to gain a new perspective when that is the case. So let's talk a minute about this content we all consume online. Okay, so much of it nowadays, sometimes I think back to when I was a teenager, and I, you know, 10% of the content that's out there now was available back then. So it's been a huge, huge change for us all. But let's ask a very fundamental question about the content we're consuming. I'm not going to talk here about, you know, video game violence or any of that kind of stuff. I'm just talking about a much more fundamental question in terms of your own personal emotional well-being in life. And this is the question I want you to consider. How much of this content that I'm consuming has actually anything to do with me or my life? I think a lot of this stuff we're kind of passively watching or passively consuming, and it doesn't really have anything to do with our lives. So what I'm talking about is if we wanted to have a positive influence, it should be about us to some extent. So what I'm asking you to consider here is to, I'm not going to ask you to deprive yourself, I'm not going to ask you to stop watching or doing certain things, but I'm going to ask you to start to look for, we're all going to consume content probably to some degree or another. I'm asking you to search out and seek for people or content that is going to have a positive influence in your life. Search for people that resonate with you and look for people who are interested in your life, who are interested in your personal development and your personal growth. Talk about things that actually resonate with you in a way that resonates with you. So that's a super, super important thing we can start to do. This is not about depriving yourself of anything. Rather, I want you to think about actively seeking out content that is about your life, can have a positive influence on you, makes you feel good. Searching that out as a replacement maybe to gradually phase out the old type of content that we look at. What am I talking about here? You know, if we look at our content consumption and we see there's a lot of like, I'm watching a lot of media gossip or maybe even a lot of sports or movies or politics, right? Things like that. Those things don't really have a lot to do with us personally. I'm not saying that you stop doing that, but what I'm saying is you find that alternative and start to lean into that alternative, which is probably going to be much more supportive and relevant to your own life than those other forms of content. So it's to not let those other passive forms of content take over to the point where you're unconsciously consuming them all the time. I am firmly of the belief that if we are going to feel good in ourselves emotionally, if we're going to grow, that we need to have influences. We need to be around other people that share that same goal that we have for ourselves of personal growth, maybe healing all the stuff that we're carrying, feeling good about ourselves. That's a very important goal to have and to be consciously aware of. And to look for other people who share that goal, who are going to support you in that goal. We can certainly talk about boundaries with people in our lives. Very important to step away from a situation in which you're not being supported. One of the very few real choices I think we have in life is to look for where are the positive influences. We do have control in that choice. There's a lot of things we don't have control over or choice over, but that is one of them. And therefore this video is kind of an encouragement to you. Maybe you find these videos helpful. I hope you do. But if you do like my content, look for other people that you feel are going to be supportive and are going to be interested in change for you and make you feel emotionally supported. That's really the message in this video today. Look for alternatives to the stuff that is passively consumed. It's not really that helpful in your life. And do it as an experiment, right? Do it for like a week or two and just see what happens to your emotional well-being. See what happens to your focus on your own personal growth mission or journey. You'll probably be a lot more supported and a lot more focused and less distracted with the things in life that don't really make that much of a difference ultimately at the end of the day. So this is a massively overlooked factor in our mental well-being. I want you to give it some consideration. And that's my message for today. Thanks as always, guys, for joining me. And I will see you again in the next video. Take care of yourself. Bye.