Self First, Then Others
“Ehara taku toa I te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini”
“Any success should not be attributed to me alone, it was the work of all of us”
Your internal and external environments directly influence the way you think and therefore the way you think impacts on how you feel, and your behaviour.
In short, if you hang around shit people, you will think shit thoughts, and if you think shit thoughts, your actions will reflect the shit around you. Because we are what we think we
are.
This is paralleled with what we take on board internally, if you continue to eat or drink shit, that will leave you feeling like shit, and if you feel like shit the immediate response will be to react or respond like shit. Because as the majority of us know, we are what we eat.
The clarity of our thoughts is a cumulative total of the tapestry of external and internal environments.
TAKE AN INVENTORY OF YOUR RELATIONSHIPS. WHY?
Well, we’ve only got so many hours in a day and in our lives, and we’ve only got so much space for thinking about things. When we just add to our lives and try to do everything, or be everything to everyone, we eventually reach the point where we’re spread so thin that we’re not seeing quality results from any of it. We get worn out easily, the energy vampires suck their fill, and we are left dissatisfied, lethargic, and dragging the chain.
So, yes, take inventory – to be at your best for yourself, your loved ones, and any other important people.
See, relationships are funny things. Some have hugely positive influences on our lives, some negative, and some just come in fairly flaccid and neutral. While we can’t control all the relationships we have in our lives, we do have some control over the time spent together and the influence we allow those relationships to have on our lives. It is the level of control we do have (however great or small) that we want to focus on. There are many nuanced details we could evaluate about each relationship, but I prefer a very simple method.
Ask yourself one critical question to get at the heart of the relationship, and from there you can decide if you should devote more time or less time to each one, as this will directly effect the way you endure.
Ask yourself: “Does my relationship with this person make me want to be and/or help me become a better person?” If yes GREAT! If it’s a NO, then consider cutting away the dead wood (said with compassion and understanding). I believe that all relationships you choose to have in your life should be helping make you a better person or a better business. If that’s not actively happening, I think you should seriously evaluate what benefit that relationship is to you.
You’ll probably find that it’s completely justifiable to restructure the way you spend your precious time and resources. And in some cases, it may mean you need to fix things or just cut ties.
It’s not always easy to do, but when you spend your time in the way that makes you the best You, everyone around you benefits exponentially.
I speak from both personal and business experience that the time spent thinking about this and taking the difficult action on it really becomes a huge positive for everyone. Wait till you experience what it’s like to cut away the heavy burden of those that bring you down, you become lighter, more energetic, able to endure better, and it helps develop that best version of you. It can clear your lines of thinking, it can free up time for those things and people most important to you, and it allows you to only add new things to your plate when you know it’s a positive for everyone involved.