Who has influence in your life? This is an important question often overlooked. We all strive to live good, healthy, balanced, lives and if we are truly being honest, we should be living God-filled lives. No one is perfect, therefore, opposition is thrown in our way and we don’t always live good, healthy, balanced lives. Sometimes when we get stuck in not living right, some cognitive or psychological damage can occur with manifestation of a mental or behavioral disorder. I’ve seen people develop OCD as a result of a traumatic event in their lives. So many people suffer from a mild to major form of depression or anxiety and they simply stay stuck for much too long without the right medication and therapy. These obstacles influence your life and the lives of the people around you. You influence the people around you, spreading as far out as your coworker’s family when you talk to them at work about how you are handling your life they may go home that night and make decisions in their own families according to your “advice” or your story.
People are the most powerful of influences, especially the ones closest to you – in your inner circle. Oftentimes when people are considering a decision that would affect their lives, they confer with family and friends in one way or another and gain their opinion. These opinions have influence over us, so the important question to now ask, is who are allowing in your inner influential circle? Relationships are complex. Some people have friends that have been in their lives for so long, it would feel strange not to have them around. Some people have family members that are toxic in their relationship with you but they are family. It’s true that you don’t have a choice when it comes to your family, but you do have a choice as to what kind of relationship you have, what your boundaries are and how much you allow them to influence your life. Influence occurs in your life every day and every time you interact with someone.
You can choose to a certain degree who you are allowing to influence you. Influence occurs through your cell phone as well. Every person that posts on your social media sites or interacts with you through social media has influence on you. What you see online, in movies, television, music you listen to, has influence on your thoughts and your perception of the world. You do have a choice in the matter. You can choose people that are supportive and help you grow and strive for better. You can choose social media friends that are positive and uplifting or you can choose friends that make fun of other people and put them down. We don’t have control over everything in this life, but there are a few things we can make well thought-out choices that will influence our minds and bodies in the most positive way possible enabling us to pour that positive influence into our children, our families and even reaching our coworkers and their families. You have the power to make an impact in the world, but it requires making conscious decisions. One of those is making the decision of whom you allow inside of your own influential shield.