Can friends hold you down when you are trying to change your life? How can you stop it?…

Do you still talk to your old friends from school? If you do, you’re lucky. However, most of us leave a lot of friends in the past. This is not something to feel bad about, it is natural because you don’t have any more that connection (school) with your friends. Therefore, it is harder to have something to talk about, I’m both start to lose interest.

This can also happen when you are trying to change your life. When I started my self process of changing, I started to realize how rude and negative were all of my friends, I had to find a way to develop my own self help motivation, because I couldn’t count on them. For example, on time we went to a concert, they kept critisizing everyone on the street, on the concert, on the restaurant, etc… I didn’t want to keep going that, because when you criticize somebody else, you are actually showing what you really are. Yes, it is funny sometimes! But you are laughing about the person, not about the situation. Anyway, I started to become more distant from my friends, because at the end, they didn’t help me change.

There is a reason why people don’t like their friends to change. In a sociological way, you are satisfying a social need for your friend. So when you change, their social needs start to change. Your friends don’t like you to change, because they don’t want to change. It’s that easy. Remember, we all have needs we need to satisfy during our existence.  And the social needs tremendously important to feel alive.

So do I need to change all of my friends if I’m trying to change? Only the ones that are stopping you. You need to observe that this carefully. There will be people that make a negative environment when you are present. This will stop your progress when you change your life. For example do you think a person who is due on a low-calorie diet, we like to go to a buffet? Of course not, it will hurt her, because she will be tempted to eat. The same applies with thoughts. You are with people who don’t share the same ideas as you, you’re in the wrong place. That is the reason why we go to specific places to share our ideas, even when we don’t say it. For example, when you go to church, you are sharing an idea that you believe in a God, even when you don’t tell everybody you do. Or when you go to an iPod store, you are sharing the idea that you like iPods. So when you change your life, and you don’t share the same ideas as your friends, you are an iPod person in a Microsoft Zune store. You just don’t fit.

So how can you find new friends if you don’t share your ideas or lifestyle? Dale Carnegie wrote a great book on this topic, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Here are the main ideas to like people and find new friends *I will write a post specially about his book on the future*:

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

• Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.
• Give honest and sincere appreciation.
• Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six Ways to Make People Like You

• Become genuinely interested in other people.
• Smile.
• Remember that a man’s Name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
• Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
• Talk in the terms of the other man’s interest.
• Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.

Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

• Avoid all arguments.
• Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never tell someone they are wrong.
• If you’re wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
• Begin in a friendly way.
• Start with questions the other person will answer yes to.
• Let the other person do the talking.
• Let the other person feel the idea is his/hers.
• Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
• Sympathize with the other person.
• Appeal to noble motives.
• Dramatize your ideas.
• Throw down a challenge.

Social interaction is always moving. As the river flows, so people flow in your life. There will be times when you have an estable relation with a friend for years, and then it stops. It is life. You will find new friends, maybe regain others, but at the end you have to keep going and do what its best for you, to achieve your goals and to change your life.

image credit: seanosh

About the Author

Anton Cela is a self development author and consultant. Phillip Cela is a recognized university teacher and speaker on motivation, leadership and self help. Find more about their work on “The Change Your Life Phenomenon”, a world-wide-movement to help people change their lifes at Change Your Life Phenomenon.com You can send us an email or follow “The CHYL Phenomenon” on Twitter.