How Are You Influenced In Your Life?

Who and what do you allow to influence you? How does it affect what you do, how you feel about yourself and your happiness? Your life may literally be the result of the influence of others who have no interest in seeing you succeed at anything beyond the ordinary nor be truly happy.

I think if you ask most anyone if they would rather live their life uniquely rather than following others they would say, "Yes, of course" But, then why are so many people living in ways that are more similar than different? Most appear to be striving for the same things, yet are complaining about it? Most are following what the crowd is doing because at one level it seems nice.

Have you ever heard the statement, "Life is a journey, not a destination"? That's true. If you are not deeply motivated to be, do or have something, you will not be happy about the journey it take to get there. On the reverse, if you are going towards your hearts desires, your core reasons, you will find fulfillment in the journey.

Why it's so easy to follow the masses has to do with influence. Who and what we allow to influence our thoughts and behaviors. When most people are all so closely in lockstep with each it's other is because they are allowing themselves to be influenced by the most common denominator. Whatever thinking and behaviors are most generally accepted are the easiest to operate with. There are many ways that entire societies encourage sameness and actually mediocrity.

I think we all know to a degree that it can be difficult to go against the grain. What happens is that everybody is seeking to feel good and the ego mind can help come up with a plethora of ways to help you feel good. One of the common ways is for us to complain, gripe about and put down someone who appears different. This tends to validate a person on a ego thinking level, and they temporarily feel a little better. So many people noticing the differences you may have from them and their perceived concept of what is 'normal', that you can be bombarded constantly if you stray far from the pack.

Another common feel good behavior of people is their desire to keep things the same, change is less comfortable than a static situation. It's so very common to see people making all kinds of efforts to create a comfortable situation for their life. So, if you come along acting different, rocking the boat, they easily notice. In fact it can out and out aggravates some people. This is commonly seen with friends and relatives, people that are close to you. Actually, it disturbs the comfort zone they have with your relationship when you do things too differently, and they don't like that.

And then there is the public who can let you know right away that you are a bit strange! Look back in history, most new things and discoveries initially were taken with disdain by the general public. In schools today kids get pushed into acceptable trends in clothing and behavior, or they are somewhat cast out. In the workplace you can be looked down on by other workers if you do too much or try to stand out. This is uncomfortable for them, but in order to feel good, they throw it back at you a being the problem.

You actually have chosen to allow all of these factors and more to influence your thinking and behavior. It is said that there are millions of people who suffer to some degree with a low self-image. And self-image, the belief in yourself and your capabilities is critical for doing anything, except, going along with the crowd. If you follow this 'guidance' from everybody outside of yourself, you are being influenced by them. It is so easy to get wrapped up in all this along with groups of people because we want to feel good too, so fitting in is the easiest way.

Our unconscious habitual ego thinking helps up do many things to feel good, usually at any price! The ego is concerned with right now, now usually what's ultimately best for us. It becomes more difficult to break the patterns of the masses the longer we accept them, because we acquire more and more thought patterns that support it all. Now, this is not to say we can't break away, actually we can any tine we choose. Most just don't know they can.

It takes something more powerful than your established comfort based thought patterns to break free from them. Again, look to history or to anyone you know who has achieved something above the average, you will find that they were driven to a cause. To them, what they were going after was far more powerful than the possible influence from all around them. They usually had to put up with a lot from the naysayers, many times even their closest relatives. Remember, they are just uncomfortable and lashing back.

To find out how we are influenced requires daily attention to your thinking to where you can begin to understand how you are reacting to others. And to how you have possibly squelched some deep inner burning desires because of what others have said or you think may say. Taking command or your thoughts is the single most powerful thing you can do for yourself. Once you see what is going on you can do something about it, but not before.

You can then begin to decide which influences are good for you and which are not. Then making choices about what you do and who you are around starts to fall into place. A good life is all about making choices - the right choices.