Wrong Friends: The Power of Your Environment

Your environment has a lot of influence on how you think and what you do. Wrong friends can therefore cause you to make just the wrong choices. I can know, but I can also know that you yourself can do a lot to change your environment. A while back, I had one of those moments where I realized how far I had come.

Therefore, in this blog, I want to focus more on the power of your environment and the influence of your friends

I had actually gone out to dinner with friends in a setting I’d experienced before. Just a nice bite to eat, except my group of friends had completely changed compared to before. Now I was sitting there with people who are top performers in their fields, and I’d say I can call myself a top performer in my field as well (if I do say so myself 😉).

Those other friends came because I changed, too. I once made a very conscious decision to change my life and with that my environment changed as well. This didn't happen very quickly or without a struggle. But it is inevitable.

It will be the same when you change.

And this can be painful at times, but it is necessary.

You could also say, “I’m going to change my environment first, and that will help me change myself.” That’s often the fastest way to bring about change. Do you want to achieve something? Seek out people who have already achieved it and spend time with them. It’s one of the best formulas for success there is.

Influence of friends

Friends influence young people’s opinions, behavior, and development.

This can actually go both ways. Friends help you develop your social skills and become more resilient to stress. These friendships help you build your self-confidence and gain a better understanding of other people.

The other side is that friends can actually cause you to become unsocial and even engage in criminal behavior. On this side, scientists believe that this can begin, for example, because you are at a party, your friends are drinking beer and you are more likely to drink beer. You then adopt your friends' traits instead of developing your own.

Young people also note that good friends help you with your problems[1] and thus have a direct influence on how you solve them—whether you take responsibility for what you need to do, or whether you become a victim and start pointing the finger at others to solve your problem.

Friends also affect your performance, as I have noticed myself, scientists have also studied this. For this, they divided students into how good they are at something and how good their friends are at something. They had students write a letter on 2 occasions, students who dealt with friends who were already better at this wrote a significantly better text the^2nd time. This means that it was really down to their group of friends that their performance improved.

For students who were low achievers at first, friendships with students who were already high achievers helped them gain more satisfaction, self-confidence, social status and a greater sense of being rewarded for good work[2].

Bad friends

Anyone who listens to or watches Jordan Peterson, or reads his books, also learns a thing or two about what makes a good friend and what makes a bad one. Bad friends are people who, for example, become jealous of your success and try to thwart your progress; they don’t have your best interests at heart.

In the process, bad friends can also take advantage of you. For example, you are always the bob. You just get that piece of space cake that is too big so it doesn't fall nicely. You are basically the joker of your friends' club.

Research also shows that if you don’t have a good relationship with your parents, friends are more likely to influence you to do things that aren’t good for you[3]. After all, you’re much more susceptible.

For example, a good friend would never encourage you to go on a binge-drinking spree—something that, unfortunately, can lead to alcohol poisoning in some young people.

Recognizing wrong friends

But sometimes a click is just really good and everything is incredibly enjoyable. So how do you know if you have the wrong friend? Then check these things.

You tell bad news. A bad friend will then tell a story about what was worse about his life or the life of someone he knows. A good friend will listen to you.

You tell good news. A bad friend will then tell you something that has been good for them or someone they know. A good friend will celebrate with you that you have good news (even if they are not doing well).

People with whom things are not going well can start to pull you down, thereby talking up for themselves that they are not doing well[4].

If you are afraid to put this to the test, a hypnosis expert can help you with this. Anyway, if you have a fear of telling good news, that is already a sign. Still, it is good then to check if you are worried for nothing or if you just had the feeling right. Your feeling could be wrong and then it would be a shame if you didn't double check.

A hypnosis expert can help you prepare for this good news or bad news conversation by, for example, visualizing how you tell it and how you give your acquaintance a chance to show up as a friend or as someone who is just not helping you.

Breaking the pattern of wrong friends

As mentioned earlier, a bad relationship with your parents can make you more susceptible to getting friends who don't have your best interests at heart. You are then more likely to do what they want because you want to be accepted. This is because your family is then not an alternative to your social life, or at least it does not feel that way.

Over the course of your life, this may have created a pattern where you find it difficult to set boundaries and are afraid of rejection. As a result, you may hold on to some friendships longer than is good for you.

Regression can help you break these kinds of patterns of choosing not for yourself, but for wrong friends. In fact, with regression, you go back to the first moment when you accepted a friend when they were not doing right by you. Then while you are under hypnosis you start doing something with that moment to handle it differently from now on. To recognize wrong friends faster and to choose for yourself when a friendship is dragging you down. This can do an awful lot to have the right people around you in the future to help you with your personal goals.

Location to find friends

Then once you get rid of those wrong friends or at least know who you do and don't want around you you can feel like you want to find friends who will actually help you move forward.

So how do you do this?

It depends a bit on the goals you want to achieve. Since I’m an entrepreneur with the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands, I’ve attended seminars, and that’s where I got to know many of my new friends.

With these new friends, I’m even giving a seminar, and I’m also giving seminars more often on my own for the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands (definitely worth checking out if your goal is to learn hypnosis and help people 😊).

Instead, do you have athletic goals? Then you can also meet interesting people in the gym who can help you achieve your athletic goals.

Are you more into cooking? So taking a cooking class can definitely help you meet new people with similar interests.

So check out where you can learn more to achieve your goals and if that allows you to do something where you meet like-minded people.

If you are nervous about even going to such an event, a hypnosis expert can also help you build your confidence and skills to go to such an event on your own.

Want to learn more about hypnosis? Join the free online masterclass for an introduction.

Would you rather get started right away with techniques to help yourself and others? Then come to a seminar (yes, really 😊) or sign up right away for one of our courses. The courses are taught in person or live online. Choose the format that suits you best.

Also, pin this infographic as a reminder:

Sources:

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8721.ep11510326?journalCode=cdpa

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780122405402500177

[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1005188108461

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5ukKf4vi6g