I see a lot of advice out there about removing toxic people from your life.
Everybody talks as if we should be identifying and forcefully ejecting the people that hold us back, whenever we decide to improve ourselves.
I guess I have a different take on this issue.
Change always began on the inside, for me.
Starting with my own beliefs and attitudes.
Then…
Those changes manifested automatically in my outer world with my actions and habits.
And when I started really improving myself outwardly, my acquaintances sorted themselves out.
Whether that meant following my lead, or just deciding that I was nuts and distancing themselves from me, I never really had to “remove” anyone from my life, or convince them to follow along with the changes I was making.
It always just happened naturally.
Did some of them try to hold me back, like crabs in a bucket pulling the attempted escapee back down with the rest?
Sure.
But it never really had much effect on me.
Not because I have some sort of unbreakable willpower and resistance to peer pressure.
I don’t.
I just learned how to keep my eye on the prize in those situations.
When I quit drinking, my buddies who only wanted to drink with me told me I was boring and stopped hanging out with me.
Not really a problem. Since my decision to quit drinking was final, and if that’s all we had in common to begin with, then so be it.
When I started eating right and exercising regularly, a few of my friends and family actually followed my lead and started exercising and eating better themselves.
But…
When I decided to start my own business, everybody thought I was nuts and a few even tried to actively hold me back.
Money has a weird effect on people.
And if the people in your life have strong negative emotions towards money and success, then you may actually experience some real friction.
Some people, when they see you start to be way more successful than they’re comfortable with, will try to actively hold you back.
I still didn’t need to “remove” them from my life, though.
We just stopped talking about money and business, and continued being friends. Some of them even began to reevaluate their own beliefs about success and started looking for ways to improve their own situations.
So I gotta say, I’m not really a fan of “removing toxic people.”
Unless someone is blatantly abusive towards you, in which case, the solution should be obvious.
But, for me, the best approach has always been to give myself a plan – a mission – and focus on that. People who are attracted to that seek me out and stick around, and people who aren’t…
Well, they simply show themselves the door.
No explosive confrontations.
No hard feelings.
Just keep focused on your life mission.
Don’t stress yourself out over the opinions of people who don’t have that type of direction in their lives and…
Everything else always sorts itself out.