Thursday, July 17, 2008

The Most Important Self Help Principle

There are many important self help principles to learn and develop, which will aid you through your journey towards success. All successful people around the world utilize various self help principles to help get them where they are today. There is one chief principle however, that if understood and applied properly, will provide you with the most valuable intangible asset that you will ever acquire.

The principle is simply to associate with the kind of people that you want to become. If you want to be a great lawyer, hang out with great lawyers. You want to be a great business man or women, then make sure you associate and socialise with good business people. If excelling in your studies is your thing, you’ll profit greatly by socialising with the keener more switched on students. This may sound a little too simple and basic, but do not be mistaken, its effects are extraordinary.

Our friends and associates are the people we care most about, we spend most of our time with, we speak to the most and we genuinely care what they think of us. The amount of energy we invest in our friends and the energy that we absorb from them is huge. In time we begin to subconsciously act the way our friends do, speak as they speak, dress as they dress and think as they do.

Take a good look at the people you spend most of your time with. Do they motivate you to excel in life? Or do they bring you down? Do they live their lives in a manner that inspires you? Or are you doing all the inspiring? Are they people of quality and honest morals, or are they riff-raff? These are all important questions to ask yourself, because day after day, month after month, year after year these people's qualities and thoughts slowly become your own.

For these reasons, it is extremely important that you choose the environment you live in carefully as the environment you choose will shape you. Be careful of the friends you choose within your environment for gradually you will become like them.

Always remember to be careful of who you associate with, as your friends can affect your life more than you may realise. A good friendship is the most valuable intangible asset a person can have.

- By Mark Machaalani