Choose Your Friends Wisely – Overcoming Peer Pressure

Choose your friends wisely! You remember your parents, counselors, and teachers repeating this over and over again, right? But it wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I really understood why. The other day I found myself sounding like my parents and saying the same thing to my teenage daughter. When she asked why, I explained that the peer group you choose can influence more than one decision. It can affect the course of your life, for better or worse. If you choose a group of peers who have a lower expectation for themselves or your life, it can bring you down. If you choose a group of peers with an equal or higher expectation, you can encourage them by challenging them to be more. She asked how? That’s when we talked about ‘peer pressure’. After complaining about how “hard life is in adolescence,” she asked if “peer pressure” still existed for adults. My answer? Absolutely!

Adult Peer Pressure Basics

Have you ever felt pressure to achieve, obtain or win something based on ‘pressure’ from your peers? Maybe it was a friend who got a raise and traded his practical car for a luxury sedan. Maybe it was a friend who lost weight and got fit. Maybe it was a co-worker who got promoted before you.

Here are 4 important questions to ask yourself:

1. How did you deal with the pressure?

Did you lose yourself in a fit of inner jealousy and pouting? Did you run away from ‘pressure’ and make excuses why ‘you can’t have the same result’? Or did it inspire you to want more and better for yourself?

2. Is what they have really what you want?

When you saw the new car, the bigger house, the weight loss or whatever the trigger was, did you feel the ‘pressure’ because you really want that too? Or is it just ‘pressure’ that you should want that too?

Example: Sally sees her best friend and neighbor buy a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood where they live. Sally feels the ‘pressure’ to do the same every time she visits her friend. But, Sally loves her house and doesn’t really need a bigger house, but she feels she ‘should’ be working towards a bigger house because her friends always want to know when she’s going to ‘upgrade’.

There is nothing wrong with wanting bigger and better, but it is your desire to improve your house, car, etc.; An attempt to keep up with the Joneses or are his options upgraded because they are his dream?

The easiest way to free yourself from feeling the ‘pressure’ of things you really don’t want is to know what you do want in your life.

Example: Personally, Rob and I are very clear about how we want to live our lives. We love to travel and will spend every penny of our income exploring the world. The decisions we make in everyday life help us achieve our goals of traveling non-stop. We used to own 3 houses between us. We decided we weren’t interested in the stress or costs associated with non-recurring, but always-recurring lawn care, pool maintenance, and home repairs that always seem to come at the wrong time. So now, we rent. If something breaks or leaks, we just make a phone call and let someone else write the check. For us, this freed up our income to do what we love and reduced the stress of ongoing maintenance and issues. Every time we feel the pressure of ‘home ownership’, we laugh, because that person usually doesn’t travel with us or anywhere for three weeks in the summer. We are clear about what we want and how we want to live our lives. Low maintenance and stress free!

3. If you achieved, got, or won (fill in the blank), would it be a positive or negative influence in your life?

This goes back to whether it’s something you really want, or you just want because you’re trying to keep up. Also, always remember, there is always someone with bigger, better, newer, prettier and more expensive things. This is a hamster wheel that will never end and eventually you will come out spinning out of the wheel!

Example: If you need to feel ‘significant’ by upgrading your home or car, but doing so will stress you out financially, that would be a negative influence. In the end, you may have an immediate sense of success, but when your friends aren’t around to congratulate you and you’re looking at your $0 bank balance, how will that affect your life?

4. What are you going to do about it?

This is where you get off the pot! If you find yourself feeling ‘pressure’ to reach, obtain or win something that you really, honestly and truly want and will be a positive influence or addition to your life, ask yourself what steps you are taking on a daily, weekly and/or monthly basis. to reach your goal?

New rule: If you want something and someone else has it, you can’t complain or rant about what they have if you’re not willing to do the work to get it yourself.

your peer group

Adult ‘peer pressure’ is real and can affect your life, your decisions and your happiness, just as it can affect a teenager learning the rules of life. Your peer group, even as an adult, is incredibly important. Do you surround yourself with people who will lift you up or bring you down? Do your closest friends share similar goals for health, family, finances, and life in general?

For example, if you take the average weight of your 5 closest friends, you are likely to be pretty close to their weight. The same goes for income. So if you have high goals for your life, make sure your peer group has them too!

conclusion

In the end, it’s all about you. Be who you are, do what you love and don’t let others bring you down or make you feel less than for your decisions or desires. In return, don’t do that to anyone else either. Keep your friends and yourself at a high level.

You have the opportunity to create the life you want, the way you want.

Apologies are over. It’s time to live!