Surrounding oneself with positive people is impeccable for keeping our lives … alive. Not only this, if we see it from the other perspective, a negative surrounding, whether it is a gloomy weather or a pesky person can be awfully demeaning to some of us, it is not really much of the surrounding as to how we react to it; this is why we, humans, tend to get away from negativity or at least we blame it on the surrounding when we fail to consist.
Positive relationships are not necessarily with positive people. I don’t believe anyone can have the luxury to choose an “always positive” environment; it’s our way of reacting to the situations and circumstances that are happening around us. The question that we always have to ask ourselves at any given point or decision, “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?”, makes a lot of difference in determining how positive a day, hence, a life can be.
We all get dragged to negative situations everyday, some could be getting into a useless discussion with someone with a different point of view, or to a nonsense subject, others could be simply reacting to a traffic jam or a reckless driver, and of course getting into drama situations that pulls you down to be a victim for someone or something, or worse, reaching rage on a person or a status. You’d be surprised to know how much energy this stuff sucks out of you on daily basis, and you’d be surprised more to know how much they affect your decision making in a lot of situations that may intervene or not in those same moments.
Remember the times you raged on someone because of another person? Or when you consciously quit on something you once wanted so bad because of what happened on the way to get it? The environment we surround ourselves with does not only consist of people and physical matters, but also rely a lot on the emotional environment around us, and coming to a closer look on that, one can identify the patterns of situations that affect their emotional reactions and mental health.
Relationships, just like anything else, are results of work, opportunities and attitude, and they grow by one factor, “FOCUS”. Let’s look at it this way, you’re sitting at the gate of a plane, waiting for the boarding announcement, dead tired from a long work journey, and can’t wait to get yourself on that plane to reach home later for the people who matter the most; next to you, lies a talkative person, who seems to have all the energy in the world at this moment, and is trying to open a good conversation with you while you’re merely at the last dash of energy. Your perspective makes all the difference in this situation, if you just see this person as a pain in the neck, you’d simply ignore them and get yourself to look busy with a book or phone; but if you make the effort just to give them the benefit of the doubt by seeing them as a “may be” entertaining option to pass this time while in the air, everything could change, this talk could lead into a good relationship, friendship, business connection, networking connection and in its worst forms, it’d be a nice chat that made boring flight time pass. It all comes to a simple decision you’d have taken on that gate back then.
I get really stunned by people who tell me they can’t get someone’s number, or make someone’s connection, first question I ask is always:
“what efforts did you make?”
“what did you actually do to approach them”
Someone once made this statement in one of my seminars, “Hady, I feel unapproachable, I seriously cannot tell one time I was approached by anyone in a public place, even to ask for directions”. I asked her what did she do for a living, and she said she’s in the consultancy business and that she travels a lot, so I asked her to describe a typical business travel journey, she replied: ”well, a typical journey could be traveling either very early in the morning or late at night, and in both cases, I wouldn’t be in the mood for talking, so most of my times I have my headphones on, holding a book in my hand, and roaming around the airport shops or relaxing at one of its lounges until my plane time. I stood in silence resting my case.
Being approachable requires sending the right signs that you actually are, with headphones on your head and a book in your hand, you are sending a “leave me alone!” message actually, it’s like wearing a “Do not Disturb” sign, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Moving to body language, if you are showing a frown face or disinterest eyes, no one would approach you for a conversation.
Interacting with people, having those little transitions, meeting someone for a coffee or a drink, conducting a business transaction or meeting, are the components of our daily lives, and there’s always a better way to do them; Determine what you want from any situation, be in control of the conversation, lead the other party to what you have planned out of it, and voila…
Acquaintances, Friends, Close friends, connections, social media contacts, colleagues, and many other forms of relationships are all under your control if you decide first on your relationships’ circles, put layers and draw your comfort zone within each one, then categorize the relationships with the people around you upon those circles, you’d make sure you are getting the best from each relationship and each layer. Being in control might sound too theoretical here, but let’s look at it, who is the decision maker on what to share with those people, how much time to spend with each one, and how much to open up? obviously, you. You see if this is done in any other way, you wouldn’t be in control, and thus you would fall in the trap of negative vibes, time loss and stress escalation.
By not getting what you want from the relationship and going with the flow of the negative vibes would only lead to frustration and anger, and of course fear of what you are going to lose. Spending time in a meaningless or shallow conversation, or doing something that is really not interesting to you, making the effort to cope with someone else’s priorities would only make you feel bad about yourself at the moment and worse, later on. What’s worse than losing time, money, and effort on something that doesn’t mean anything to you?
Building healthy relationships, on all levels, requires a lot of effort of both maintenance and development from your side, meeting the opportunity by just being in the right place and right time, which can never be guaranteed, is by itself a hard decision, one of my dear friends once described booking a travel, seminar, of event ticket like actually buying a lottery ticket… so true, its like booking a date with fate, you don’t know who’d be sitting next to you, what conversations you’d have with the and which doors would that open; you never know who’d be attending this event or whom you’d bump into on that plane, chances are so many to explore by just dressing up and showing up, this is defined as developing relationships or the least, growing your network.
Maintaining relationships requires also a lot more of effort and time, its not always easy to make that phone call while on your lunch break, or to attend this occasion after work. It’s always challenging to make not so important nor urgent casual meetings with business colleagues, especially people that you know you don’t have much in common with; I understand we all want to ultimately spend candid times with people we are interested in genuinely, we want to spend quality time with the ones who are dear to us, and they of course would be a priority. Yet, one can only grow by the strength of the relationships he/she invests in, hence, investing in this area, putting in the time and effort to be there is as important.
