Do you ever find yourself surrounded by people who annoy you?
Who bore you?
Are there people in your life who you feel diminished by? Who drain your energy or who seem to bring out the very worst in you?
You have infinite choices when it comes to the people you spend your precious time with. Here are 4 steps for surrounding yourself with people who are kind and uplift your life,
Step #1: Figure out what’s important to you.
We all have different standards of what we find to be uplifting. And we all have different definitions of kindness. And, these definitions and standards naturally change as we move through different phases and interests in our lives!
Now is the time to take a fresh assessment of the kind of people you want to surround yourself with. What qualities would you love to experience in those you spend time with? What is missing in your social life that you’d like to be present? And, what characteristics in others do you find yourself tolerating that you’re ready to let go of?
Here is a quick process to make this assessment easier.
Turning Contrast Into Clarity
- Think about the most negative people in your life – those who are the least kind or uplifting.
- Write out the qualities you find most unattractive about each of them. For example, “unappreciative; self-centered; moody…” This acknowledgment can be quite liberating, so have fun with it!
- Now, use this list of what you don’t want to help you clarify what you do.
If your co-workers complain all the time, you’re clear that you want to hang out with more appreciative people. If it bothers you that your significant other is somewhat sedentary, you now know you’re craving more physical activity.
- Turning the contrast in your life into clarity about what would make it better is the first important step. The next step is to make sure that you, yourself, are expressing the qualities you’re craving from others.
Step #2: Become the Person You Are Looking For
“As within, so without” is a timeless spiritual truth. It means that the energy and attitude we bring into any situation is usually what others reflect back to us.
We can’t expect to draw people into our lives who are kind and uplifting if we are self-critical and negative. “As within, so without” means that we have to cultivate within ourselves the qualities we’re seeking to experience with another.
So, look again at the list of qualities you consider to be kind and uplifting. Honestly speaking, how many of those characteristics and traits do you currently embody and express? If the answer is, “not that many,” the next step is to explore what you could do to change that.
Step #3: Generate Your Own Experience
Let’s say that adventure is one of the qualities that you’ve deemed desirable and uplifting. And that as you look around your circle of friends, you’re not seeing much of it.
The usual reaction is to blame your circle of friends, right? After all, if they were more adventurous, you’d feel more uplifted in their presence!
But true self-empowerment requires going beyond looking to others to fulfill our needs and expectations. It requires us to actually cultivate within ourselves the qualities we are looking for in others.
Feeding Yourself From Within
Make a list of every action you can think of that would nourish the parts of you that feel unfulfilled. If you’re craving adventure, come up with 10 things you could do to provide that experience for yourself.
And it doesn’t have to be anything earthshaking or life-endangering! Visiting a new coffee shop; initiating a conversation with a stranger, or joining a hiking club can meet this need.
The more you already express the qualities that uplift you, the more you will attract others who express those qualities.
Step #4: Creating Internal and External Boundaries
The final step to surrounding yourself with people who are kind and uplifting is to create internal and external boundaries.
An internal boundary involves making a decision ahead of time about the types of people and experiences that uplift you.
An external boundary involves making the decision to remove yourself from people and experiences that are bringing you down.
Next time you find yourself in the middle of a negative conversation, give yourself permission to walk away. Surround yourself instead with something uplifting – even if it’s just stepping outside for a moment to look at the sky.
You have the power – and the responsibility – to choose where you direct your own focus. The more you focus on all you consider to be uplifting, the more uplifting people you’ll draw into your life.
Christy Whitman is an energy healer, celebrity coach, and the New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Having It All: A Woman’s Guide to Unlimited Abundance. To understand how to more deliberately co-create the life you desire, visit www.watchyourwords.com and gain access to a free 30-day training.
