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Dear Jacky,
Myspace was probably before your time. It was the very beginning of social networking. It existed before Facebook if you can believe that. There was a guy named Tom and he was always your first “friend” on Myspace. Google Myspace and Tom and you will see his iconic picture. I just Googled it. Tom, that was the best profile picture you could come up with? Whatever, Tom is rich now and really does not care what any of his haters say. He is too busy counting his money. One of the most significant things about Myspace was you had to pick your Top 8 friends. If you were in 9th grade at the time. That was a big deal. You would probably laugh about it today but really Tom was not too far off from Lesson #1.
There are very few things you can control in life but the people and things you choose to interact with in life is one of them. It is the single most important determining factor. The most influential of these are the people you interact with frequently. I am sure you have heard the saying, “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” –Jim Rohn. These people influence your mindset the most. Hang around someone negative and it is really hard to be positive. We all have enough self-doubt running amuck in our heads. We do not need anyone else adding extras. You need people who lift you up. Who tell you, you can, when you are convinced you cannot.
Today I was at the pool with three of my friends. They asked me what I am up to this summer and I told them I think I am going to write a book. One of my friends said, “I am so excited for you to write this book. I cannot wait until it is finished.” That is Elise. She is my biggest encourager. I have known her since 8th grade and I would say she has been a Top 5 person for me for a long time. Here I am at 9:43pm and I still have not eaten dinner because Elise said she can not wait to read my book so I need to write this book like RIGHT NOW. Her words matter and so do yours. So pull out your inner Tom Anderson and pick out your Top 5 and while you are at it pick out your Bottom 5 and distance yourself. These people are not helping you become everything you want to be and they are holding you back. They are pulling you down. They are not adding to your life so let them go. It is probably best not to have a falling out so the slow fade will suffice. Stop reaching out, telling them about your life to have negative comments hurled your way. It may sound mean but your success, happiness and self-confidence will thank you for it. No one deserves to have people in their life who cannot celebrate them.
“You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Jim RoHN
As you are picking out your Top 5, look for the people that encourage you, rejoice with you and are loyal while also speaking truth into your life when you need to hear it, forgiving you when you mess up and drying your tears when you fail. It will happen, you will fail. Pick the people that help you get back up again and charge on. Pick the people who will jerk the phone out of your hand and delete the text to your ex before you send it. You know that text I’m talking about. Pick the people you trust to read over your cover letter or that you would want to run by your latest crazy idea. In college your friend group was probably very large. As you get further into adulthood you find it dwindling so pick your people wisely. Show up for them. Clap for them. Be there for them. Send that text that makes you feel kind of icky because it is so “feelingsy” and you hate feelings when you know those are the words they need to hear. If they cannot be happy for you and cannot cheer you on they do not deserve a seat at your table. You do not need to be mean. You do not need to be angry. You just need to love yourself more than you feel pressured to let people speak into your life who do not deserve it.
It took me almost until the age of 30 to realize this and it is one of the very best things I did. I let people go who did not deserve me. Friendships are important. Since the beginning of time, Kings have always had trusted advisors and Presidents have had their Cabinets. These are the people that they go to when they make hard decisions. They make suggestions. They help solve problems. They check a person in power. This is one of the only times I will allow this but think of yourself as royalty and pick your Cabinet members wisely. Don’t get too carried away picking out your crown and your royal seal. I see you. You are the Chief Executive Officer of your life. Choose wisely those you choose to help make the decisions that ultimately affect you the most.
“You are the Chief Executive Officer of your life. Choose wisely those you chose to help make the decisions that ultimately affect you the most.”
Molly inclan
Secondly, censor the things you are exposed to that do not add to your life. Periodically I do a social media purge. Sometimes it’s because I spend way too much time on there, so if I follow less people, there’s less content for me to waste my time looking at. Sometimes it’s because I’m not sure why I spend my mental space keeping up with people’s lives I haven’t spoken to in over five years. Any account that takes away from my happiness is gone. I do not care if you are family or someone I used to know in college. If I scroll Instagram and I am having a great day and then I suddenly am not because I saw something you posted you are gone. Honestly, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. It does not have to do with how I feel about you as a person. I still will maintain my relationship with you in person. I am thirty-three and single. Not something I would have ever imagined. It is something that just has not happened for me so if you post lots of pictures of your kids or bragging on your hubby I will probably unfollow you or mute you. I can have a day where I am really happy with my life and unbothered that I’m single and I hit that scroll and then suddenly I am not feeling so happy. It took me a long time to recognize that. It is really a subconscious thing for me. I did not realize it was affecting me until I started removing it from my life. So do it. Hit that unfollow button. Social media is not real life. You can still be friends with people without following them on social media believe it or not.
I am a Type A overthinker type. One of my bad habits when I entered the workplace was scrolling news sites. I used to work at a credit union as a teller and there was lots of time spent waiting for customers to walk in the door so you could browse the internet but only certain sites. News sites were on the acceptable list so I spent my whole summer browsing news sites, then when I entered the workplace I kept up this habit. Then one day I stopped. Why, because I have enough things to worry about in my normal life that actually affect me. So I stopped. I do not watch the news or browse the websites. I have a Twitter feed where I carefully select what I want to see on it and that is how I get my news. It reduced my anxiety and worrying to things that are in my immediate sphere and to things I can do something about. I am not brought down on a perfectly good day.
You must be intentional and ruthless in your quest for happiness and peace. You must be diligent. You decide what feeds you and lifts you up and you decide what brings you down and must go. Don’t feel guilty, don’t be sorry and don’t think it is going to be easy. It is not.
Cheering you on,
Molly