The influence of the environment on a person plays an important role in the formation of his personality. “Tell me who your friend is, and I will tell you who you are,” - this is exactly what Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra wrote in Don Quixote. From childhood, the child is influenced by his parents and close relatives, and in the future his circle of friends will only grow. It is important that from an early age the child understands his area of responsibility, but at the same time feels support and understanding. Self-confidence is a fundamental factor of success. It is difficult to be successful if people around you talk about your helplessness and inadequacy.
In adulthood, the flow of new acquaintances in the daily cycle of affairs is endless. Sometimes we cannot immediately recognize the individuals who are dragging us down. Now let’s look at the main points in order to avoid making such mistakes.
What is a person's environment
First, let's define the concept of environment. Speaking in a global sense, a person’s environment means everything that surrounds him: people, city, country, mentality, food that he consumes daily, school, office, information that he lets in, sports or lack thereof, spirituality. development, etc.
All of the above, without exception, to one degree or another, influences our development, worldview, way of thinking, internal attitudes, habits, goals, priorities, emotional state, etc.
In a narrower sense, the environment refers to the people with whom a person spends the most time. These may include:
- parents,
- relatives,
- Friends,
- fellow students,
- Colleagues.
These are the people with whom you communicate most often, either by force or by choice. They are the ones who have the greatest influence on you as a person. It is logical to assume that your environment does not include, for example, a salesman in a bakery, a neighbor with whom you say hello once a month in the elevator, or a taxi driver.
The influence of the environment on personality development
Soviet and Ukrainian innovative teacher Viktor Shatalov introduced the concept of the “pickled cucumber effect” into practice. The idea is that if you put a cucumber in a salty brine, it will definitely become salty. Likewise, a person placed in a certain environment will certainly begin to adopt its character over time: thinking, outlook on life, priorities, actions, aspirations, etc.
Scientists have conducted many studies proving human dependence on the environment. Some of them belong to theology professor James Fowler and sociologist Nicholas Christakis. They described their experiments in the book “Connected by One Network.”
One of the most striking examples is prison. When a convict first finds himself among hardened criminals, he does not reform as intended by law, but becomes even more oppressed and aggressive.
Another example described in the book: people who are obese almost certainly have overweight people in their immediate environment. Conversely, among fit people who lead a healthy lifestyle, they are more likely to become addicted to sports and proper nutrition.
Many of my friends shared that they started smoking in their teens only because there were no non-smokers among their friends. Any narcologist knows that only if you radically change your environment can you get out of alcohol or drug addiction and not go back.
If a cheerful optimist is placed in the company of whiners, after some time he will also begin to complain about life and feel like a victim.
Fowler and Christakis also described the divorce situation. If couples among close friends are increasingly breaking up, then the likelihood that divorce can happen in your family increases. And this is not magic, but psychology. It's all about changing the level of the norm.
By the way, have you ever wondered why in modern society divorces have begun to happen many times more often than it did in the previous generation? Of course, one can argue for a long time that the institution of the family is dying and young people do not know how to live together, but the truth is that the level of the norm has simply changed. Previously, it was a shame to file for divorce, because it was not accepted, the grandmothers on the benches would judge, the relatives would not understand, and besides, it was easier to survive together. Plus, there was a whole bunch of husk in our heads from attitudes like “God endured and told us to.” They tolerated it, but did not divorce.
Now the situation is completely different. There are a lot of divorces. An increased level of self-sufficiency allows you to ignore gossip. Being a farmhouse with a trailer is no longer as scary as it was 20-30 years ago. Society has changed and so have the people.
If someone had told us in the past that same-sex marriage would be legalized, we would have considered it a joke. But believe me, it won’t be long before people get used to this fact. But your immediate environment will most likely help you decide on your attitude towards him, hostile or neutral.
Some general information
Man is a social being. And no matter what individual characteristics he has, the influence of society on him is simply inevitable. Under the influence of which he changes and reconsiders his views on life. Forms values and sets priorities.
There is even a so-called mirror rule. The meaning of this statement is that the people who are nearby reflect my personality, like in a mirror. The way she is, and not just the most beautiful sides, as sometimes you want.
You don’t want to admit or notice some of your own characteristics, which makes it easier to impart them to others. In psychology, there is a defense mechanism - projection.
It seems to help keep our psyche healthy when it is faced with the need to cope with life's difficulties. But sometimes, on the contrary, it interferes if it is used too often. It also distorts reality.
Let’s say I hold back anger out of some personal motives or fears. Accordingly, I don’t realize at what moments I experience it. Therefore, I can reproach close and not so close people for aggressiveness; I get hurt by their words, which I consider offensive and evil. Although in reality they did not intend to hurt at all and did not mean anything bad.
So, thanks to the mirror rule, we can take a closer look at those who are nearby and understand what we don’t want to notice in ourselves, what we categorically reject. And also what kind of people we attract, what we react to. This all significantly increases the level of awareness. This means it affects work efficiency, relationships, worldview, and so on.
You can get more detailed information about protective mechanisms by clicking on this link. Now let's move on.
Environment and success
Experts say that you, your life and even your income are the arithmetic average of the five people in your immediate circle. It is extremely difficult to become rich among poor people or to achieve great success among armchair critics. Even the number of your problems often reflects the number of problems in your environment.
Once you find yourself in a circle of people who are used to saving, complaining about low salaries but doing nothing about it, considering money to be evil, and calling the rich thieves, you will also begin to think and act in the same way.
The opposite situation. When a person begins to develop, expand his social circle, filling it with successful and satisfied people, he automatically changes his thinking, adopts new values, behavior, habits, reactions, priorities, attitude, etc. After all, poverty is not primarily in the wallet, but in my head.
Thus, we get a simple scheme: the environment changes a person’s thinking, and thinking changes well-being and leads to success or, conversely, to failure.
By the way, relationships with people influence not only success, but also all areas of a person’s life, including health. In one of her books, science journalist Lydia Denworth described that social connections can cause changes in our immunity, affect the quality of sleep, concentration levels, cardiovascular health, etc. Some relationships make a person happy and healthy, while others , on the contrary, unhappy and sick.
How to evaluate your own environment
Many people strive to take over our time and mind: family, friends, the media, politicians, teachers, bosses, marketing, etc. Very often their opinions mislead us, take away our energy and prevent us from developing.
Evaluate what and who you listen to or read every day, what emotions you let into yourself, what music and films you prefer, what you spend your free time on, what inspires you or, conversely, drags you down.
I also suggest doing the following exercise:
- Take a piece of paper and a pen.
- Draw a circle in the center of the sheet, then another larger one around it, and another one. The resulting pattern should look like a target with three circles.
- Now place a dot in the very center of this “target”. This point is you. The first circle is your immediate environment, which includes the people with whom you communicate most often and the most. The second circle is people with whom you spend a little less time. The third is the distant environment with which you maintain regular but not frequent communication.
You can designate people in any way you like: dots, initials, or just a list of everyone who belongs to a particular circle on a separate piece of paper.
Important! People should be distributed not according to the degree of kinship or closeness in spirit, but precisely according to the time you spend together.
Next comes more painstaking work. You need to look at each name on the list and ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I like how this person treats me?
- How do I feel next to him?
- Does he accept me as I am, without trying to impose his picture of the world?
- Is communicating with him beneficial or harmful for me?
- Does it contribute to my development or drag me down?
- Would I like to have this person next to me in the future I dream of?
- Why do I need a relationship with him?
The questions may be different. I gave examples, and you can adjust them to suit your needs.
And now the final stage - summing up. Based on your honest answers to the above questions, decide for yourself whether this picture suits you. What do people do in the inner circle who make you sad, make you doubt yourself and bring only negative emotions? Do you want to change something?
Then the decision is yours.
Change your environment: drastic actions
The time for drastic changes has come if most of the people around you are dragging you down. Communication with them entails only despondency and apathy. Surround yourself with a team of like-minded people. Choose people who are self-sufficient, self-confident, successful. Don't worry if they are better than you. Always strive for more.
Maybe you've always wanted to travel? In the age of the Internet, finding traveler friends is a matter of 5 minutes. Right now, go to your page on social networks, put the desired filter in the search engine and get started. People will be happy to share with you their impressions of their trips. One day you will certainly find yourself in their place.
Of course, we should not forget about true devotion and friendship. Be careful when you take drastic measures, remember honor and conscience.
Ways to form a new environment
At the initial stage of life, we cannot choose our environment. We are born into a certain family, we are sent to a certain kindergarten group, and then to a school, which is most often chosen on a territorial basis. Then we get a job in a company that has already formed its own team. And very few people think that at this age we can already make our choice and communicate with those with whom we feel good.
Here you can go in two ways - external and internal.
- External path
Here you will have to work on changing your environment on your own. No one forces you to stay in a toxic team, no one forces you to maintain friendship with a friend who uses you only as a vest and regularly plunges you into despondency, there is no need to listen to negativity from your relatives every time. Yes, this path can be very painful, because you will have to say goodbye to people and learn to build personal boundaries in communication, sometimes with those closest to you.
As for expanding your circle of acquaintances, I can recommend reading these articles about what networking is and how to make friends with a person.
- Inner path
This is to act from the position of “the world begins with you.” Look carefully at yourself, as if from the outside. The whole world, including the people who are attracted into our lives, is just a reflection of ourselves.
Answer yourself honestly: what kind of person are you? What kind of people can you attract by being this type of person? Start changing and improving yourself. Eliminate from your speech words characteristic of complainers and mourners. Make your life interesting, first of all, to yourself.
Over time, you will begin to notice how your environment changes after you: someone toxic will leave on their own because they will no longer reflect your essence, someone new will appear, attracted by new thinking.
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Step-by-step instructions for changing your environment
Many people will wonder where to start changing their own environment? Let's get acquainted with useful instructions consisting of five steps.
Step 1. Understanding ourselves
Why should you turn inward? A long stay in a negative society forces you to switch from your own desires to the needs imposed by the outside world. Let's ask ourselves:
- What kind of person am I? Who am I? (answer – at least 10 sentences).
- What are my advantages, are there any disadvantages?
- What abilities are most developed in me?
- What are my goals?
- What am I good at?
- What do I usually do easily and happily?
- What would I like to become in life?
- Who or what is stopping me from becoming who I want?
- What can I do to expand my development opportunities?
Answers to the questions asked will help you understand yourself at the current moment and determine the course of your future development plan.
Step 2: Take a closer look at your surroundings
How to analyze the environment you are in? It is recommended to take a blank sheet of paper and draw a dot in the center. Let us be this point. Next, you should schematically depict 4 circles. Depending on how often we communicate with specific people, we distribute them into circles. The more often we communicate, the closer the circle. Now it is important to understand how this or that person benefits us. We are talking about resources such as:
- information – useful, productive, entertaining, for example, advice and support from colleagues in the work process;
- physical contact - encouragement on the shoulder, hugs, kisses;
- positive emotions after communicating with a specific person;
- material support - cash, gifts, financial assistance.
This environmental analysis concerns the individual personally. It is performed only for oneself. You should be honest and truthful with yourself. There is no need to get hung up and condemn yourself for taking advantage of people. Most often, our benefit is disinterested, but valuable to us. This is moral and spiritual satisfaction, a positive attitude, an understanding of one’s own need.
Having completed the exercise, let's see how many benefits we can get from our current environment. Among these people, there will definitely be those with whom it is better not to communicate due to uselessness, loss of personal energy and strength. Such communication does not bring us any benefit or development, but only drains our strength. It is important to exclude such people from your inner circle. On the contrary, you need to think about how to bring people from distant circles who are positive, strong in character, and kind (such individuals will definitely exist).
Social connections have a powerful impact on life. Through connections between people we learn bad things or, on the contrary, good things.
Step 3. Take care to respect personal boundaries
Personal boundaries are what is permissible and unacceptable in communicating with us. People around you need to understand what your boundaries are. For example, colleagues are prohibited from using your computer, copying documents, or transmitting information without your permission. As a rule, personal boundaries are not respected in communication between a subordinate and a manager. You cannot tolerate and accept shouting and insults addressed to you. You need to calmly make it clear that this is unpleasant, unacceptable, and crosses boundaries.
Step 4. Imagine a new life, set goals
After analyzing society and a person’s environment, it’s time to move on to the next stage. You should work on setting new goals in life. These will be goals for the short and long term. It is important to understand who a person would like to see himself in 5, 10 years, what actions to take to achieve what he wants. It is recommended to present in detail your appearance, emotional state, type of professional activity, feelings, environment.
