I wanted to target this article around your circle of trust or in this case your circle of healthy influencers or lack thereof. Take a moment and think about who is in your inner circle that influences nutrition, exercise, and fitness in general. Ask yourself who you allow to remain in your inner circle that also influences your daily lifestyle.
I think many of us underestimate the power of our closest influencers. I’m reminded of that today as I write this. We have just finished two weeks working with my inner circle of biking enthusiasts to track down an adult size tricycle bike. A very good friend of ours is a special education teacher. She also specializes in working with autistic children. She had recently reached out because she was going to go buy an adult tricycle and was looking for sponsors or supporters for her therapy work. Once we heard about her goals, we couldn’t let her buy a low-quality bike from Walmart. As a huge biking nut, this will not do. Now that being said, tracking down a bike of this type became a bit of a project and I was quite busy. However, I had a good friend of mine who happens to really geek out and loves to track down bikes that are in amazing condition. He basically flips them or repurposes those bikes as a little fun yet entrepreneurial side hustle.
Building a network or in this case, an inner circle of healthy and trustworthy people ensured that we got to pull together something with a positive benefit for others. I’m telling you this story to help provide an impact on the importance of that inner circle of influence. Many of us underestimate this, so before I continue on, I’ll reference one of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
I’m truly inspired by people in general who choose to help kids and adults for that matter, living with autism. Helping to enable kids with balance issues to ride a bike is something I never thought about. I’m hoping this inspires you to really think about who is in your inner circle of trust. I’ve referenced positive results but let’s really take the time to think about who is negatively impacting your daily goals, your weekly goals, and your monthly goals. These are important topics to consider when it comes to your health, fitness and your overall lifestyle. Ask yourself what changes must be taken to improve your life. Many of us keep making excuses that are fueled by the people around us. Many of you may justify your sedentary lifestyles because of your busy careers, businesses, or the feedback from other sedentary friends/family.
We all have plenty of things to distract us, we all have plenty of opportunities to become sedentary, or justify our unfortunate unhealthy choices. Let’s be honest; it is not always your business, your job, or careers. I’ll be the first one to tell you that’s all BS because I was there once. That is your own internal psychology and possibly the bleed-over of negative influence from your inner circle that influences your actions daily.
So please really take the time to look at who is influencing your daily, weekly, and even monthly lifestyle. If these people are not helping promote positive change, you need to change that time management. This is a hard decision for many people. Psychologically, it is crucial that you start changing the people you surround yourself with. This is a must to create massive and sustainable positive change in your life. Whether it be your nutritional practices, physical education, or overall health practices, all of these things can be influenced by the people you spend the most time with.
You don’t need to change everybody you spend the most time with but start looking at those core people. Then look outside your normal inner circle and see other people that you could be spending more time with. People that will help promote and support your healthy mutual goals. Then get to work because as I already said, it’s not going to be easy, you will have struggles, and yes, it will be awkward. The most impactful changes in our life come from hard decisions.
Most people who struggle to support your healthy changes, because they themselves, are afraid to create them. If they see you taking those positive steps that used to scare them, they may hopefully want to make the same changes themselves and want back into your “Inner Circle of Health.”
