Today I’ve chosen to write about something that I consider to be very important if you want to achieve success in any aspect of your life. I’m referring to a Success Inducing Environment.

You may be asking: what do I mean by the term “Success Inducing Environment”?

I’m referring to an environment where your presence and participation in that environment will and can only lead to a successful outcome for you. It is an environment so powerful and dynamic that you cannot help but become successful.

It’s just like hanging around a crowd of people long enough that their beliefs will rub on you, as well as their actions and as a consequence, their results. I will delve into this later on in this post.

Our Environment Makes Us

Everyone has grown up in different environments and for that reason we all have different beliefs and values. The environment that we have grown up in, have made us as a person. The beliefs and values that were instilled into us in our childhood have led us to certain actions and as a result we’ve achieved certain results.

It follows the formula:

Beliefs/Values –> Actions –> Results –> Character

The character we have today have been determined by own beliefs and values whether you believe it or not.

If you were to deeply analyze a certain result you got in the past, you will realize that it came as a result of a certain action that you got, which in turn was taken because it coincided with your beliefs and values. In addition to beliefs and values, you may also include thoughts, however, these are largely determined by your beliefs and values anyway.

So essentially, who we are today was determined by our beliefs and values which in turn were instilled into us by the environment we grew up in.

You probably remember many occasions in your childhood when your parents or other adults told you things like “Stop dreaming” or “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

Whether you believe it or not, those kinds of negative statements (to me they are nothing but lies) certainly shaped your beliefs and values and have played a significant in the actions you’ve taken and results you’ve gotten up until today.

To me, it’s a great shame that many parents continue to say such things to their children. Everyone we see around us started off as a dream. Before the 20th century, if you’d said that you could create a vehicle that could fly and take humans everywhere, people would have laughed at you and probably would have sent you to a mental institution. Fortunately, the dreamers remained, and the Wright Brothers created what seemed to be impossible. If they had stopped dreaming and listened to the rest of society, we probably wouldn’t be flying today.

The point is that the dreamers are the ones that make the impossible possible. They’re the ones that are remembered and revered throughout history.

So if you are a parent and love your children, do them a favor and tell them to keep dreaming. In fact, there’s a line from the movie The Pursuit of Happyness which sums it up. It goes along the lines of: “Don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot achieve your dreams. Not even me. You’ve got to protect those dreams and go for them.”

We Can Choose Our Environment

Perhaps you didn’t grow in an environment that you would love to have grown in. It doesn’t matter.

Perhaps you feel you are at some disadvantage and feel that you are behind so many people. You are not.

Or perhaps you don’t believe that you can change your beliefs and values because you think you too old, or because you think it’s too late. You could not be further from the truth. In fact, that in itself is a Limiting Belief.

The bottom line is that the past is the past and it does not determine your future. What you did in the past does not determine your future. What you do today determines your future.

The past is the past and you cannot go back and change it. And because you cannot go back and change it you should not regret it. It’s pointless to live in the past when you are living in the present. However, by all means, you must learn from the past, because if you don’t, you are bound to commit the same mistakes again.

Perhaps as a child, you could not choose your own environment. You could not choose your family and you could not choose the school you went to (your parents would have done that). The environment was largely determined by your parents.

However, as adults, we have the ability and the freedom to choose our own environment. We can choose to hang around certain types of people if we want to. There’s no one that can hold us back and prevent us from surrounding ourselves with certain people.

In business, they say “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Who you know and the people you choose to hang around with will determine your destiny. So create your own ideal destiny by choosing the right people to hang around with.

A prime example of this, is hanging around a group of smokers when you are a nonsmoker yourself. Smokers have a certain set of values and beliefs that have made them smokers. If you were to hang around these people long enough, you will start to adopt their beliefs and values and before you know it, you will start smoking too. Get my point?

The beauty is that we can avoid that situation because we can now choose who we hang around with.

How To Create A Success Inducing Environment

I tend to find that the best way to start to create a Success Inducing Environment is to identify your role models.

In other words, who are those people you admire and look up to?

Chances are that you look up to them because they possess or possessed certain values and beliefs. Chances are that you want to be just like them. I have a large number of role models such as Richard Branson and Tony Robbins and I’m sure you have some of your own.

The question remaining then is: “If I am to become successful like them, what values and beliefs must I adopt?”

Once you have identified these values and beliefs, you must then start to look at your current environment and determine whether it is allowing you to successfully adopt such values and beliefs. This involves analyzing the people you regular hang around with.

Start with your family. Family however is a tricky subject. Chances are the values and beliefs you want to adopt are different from the ones they have. You may be tempted to change your family’s values and beliefs but this tends to only increase tension and friction between family members. When it comes to family, accept the differences that exist and enjoy every moment with your family. You cannot choose your family and hence you cannot take them out of your life. Love your family dearly because when the moment comes that you’re down and need help, you can bet on your family to help you out. You cannot guarantee this with your friends.

After your family come your friends. This is where you can actively and purposely choose the people you hang around with. What you need to do is identify, which of your friends shares the values and beliefs you want to adopt in your life to take you to the level of success you desire.

When I did this exercise a couple of months ago, I identified those people who made me feel bad or negative and those who made me feel great and positive. I also identified those who were grateful for what they already had because I believe that Expressing Gratitude is very important. For me, in order to be successful I had to hang around people who were positive, grateful and made me feel good. Because if you are positive and grateful, you will do things that positive and grateful people do which in turn will make you more positive, more grateful and feeling even better. The cycle continues. The same goes with hanging around people that bring negative vibes.

With those people that gave me negative vibes, I either cut ties with them or significantly reduced my time with them with the view of cutting ties in the very near future. You may be thinking that cutting ties with friends is a mean or low act. You may be thinking that it is wrong to cut ties with people you have bonded for many, many years. I can certainly understand your point of view.

However, what I found is that it is all about you.

Let me repeat that, it is ALL about YOU.

It may sound arrogant to some, but at the end of the day, if you are not improving yourself, living out your dreams, and taking care of yourself, then you cannot and will not be able to help other people such as your friends.

Think about it.

You cannot help others without helping yourself first.

You cannot help people from a position of weakness, you can only help them from a position of power.

It is in both your interest and their interest that you cut ties with certain people. It will allow both parties to grow and follow their own paths in life.

The best favor you can do to your family and friends is to set an example. Be a shining light of possibility for them. Over time, they will see what you’re on about and you will have had a profound impact in their lives. How wonderful is that?

So just to summarize how to create a Success Inducing Environment:

1. Choose your role models (preferably people who have achieved what you want to achieve).
2. Identify the values and beliefs of these role models
3. Look at your current environment and determine which people share those values and beliefs
4. Take action and cut ties with those that don’t share those values and beliefs.
5. Find people that share those values and beliefs you want to adopt. You can do this by going to seminars or participating in forums where you can meet people with similar goals and ways of thinking.

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and create your very own Success Inducing Environment.

Tags: Expressing Gratitude, limiting beliefs, richard branson, success inducing environment

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 25th, 2009 at 11:13 PM and is filed under Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.