Keep Negative People Out of Your Life

You know what I'm talking about. The people who see a problem to every solution and won't entertain that there is empirical evidence to the contrary. For many of us, if we really thought about it, we'd be able to identify a multitude of people who might fall into the category of "negative" but for a large portion of this group it might be argued that those negative people serve a purpose. Maybe they've helped you in the past or they bring a sort of playful aspect to your life outside of serious ideas; either way they serve a purpose. But do they really?

According to Travis Bradberry, the co-author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 & President of TalentSmart, leading when no one else is following yet is one of the 10 most important mental attributes that mentally strong people possess over their counterparts along with fighting when you feel defeated and making mistakes, looking "like an idiot", and trying again despite those mistakes.

And I'm sure each one of us can think of a few examples of acclaimed famous people who found themselves publicly or privately dropping the ball in some area only to pick it right back up and go on to greatness. Almost all of which who will tell you that failure is all apart of the journey to success and many of whom will tell you that the greatest attribute you can possess is an unwillingness to give up.

J.K Rowling, the famous author of the Harry Potter series, explains this in her commencement address to Harvard graduates, explaining that:

"You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default".

And it's that knowing that failure is inevitable that I return to my original point. As the successful continue to preach the benefits of perseverance and the joys to be found after failure is seen in hindsight, I ask once more how much purpose do the negative people serve in your life?

Once while I was still in school, I found myself in a relationship with a person who had heard an idea of mine and immediately commented that "you have all these ideas of grandeur but you don't even have a job". And she was right, I didn't, but does that make my idea or the possibility of it it coming to fruition any less valid? No, it doesn't. But what it did do was stop any further thought in the possibility of moving on an idea because it immediately stifled the rationality of it's concept. So I ended up not pursuing it any further.

And it's not her fault that I didn't start down a road that, looking back, seemed very solid. It was mine. We get to choose who we allow into our lives and who is turned around at the door. And perhaps it can be argued that in situations such as at work or other group settings the decision on who we interact with is not entirely in our own hands - but who we allow to influence us is.

And if failure is an eventuality for all of us on the path of success, how useful is it to have negative people surrounding you when you ultimately do hit a failure? No matter what their purpose in your life is or could be, what they bring into your life will hardly ever outweigh what they take away by their negative look on a situation that takes away the possibilities and opportunities a failure may actually hold.

My advice - keep the doubtful and short-sightedness of negative people out of your life. You're doing more for your success than you might ever imagine.

"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." - Jim Rohn