5 Actions You Can Take To Add New Positive Influences Into Your Life

#2— Clear out things that are no longer adding value.

When you make an effort to live your life more consciously, you start noticing things are literally sucking the life right out of you.

You wake up out of your subconscious slumber, take a look around, and wonder how in the world you got yourself into certain situations.

When you choose to live more deliberately, you choose to wake up as the article “A Four-Step Path to Deliberate Living” published in HuffPost.com states:

Living deliberately doesn’t require a complete road map for the rest of your life or an extended experiment in off-the-grid living. Rather, living deliberately is about realizing that you always have choices and making active decisions instead of falling victim to habit. If we bring awareness to our days and act with purpose, we can craft lives that leave us satisfied, fulfilled, and content.

The truth is that most people are doing just that — subconsciously wandering around aimlessly out of habit for whatever reason day after day, at the expense of not being the main character in their own life.

When I’m numb, and in this state of unconsciousness, I feel like a mindless lemming following other mindless lemmings right off of a cliff without even knowing the reason.

Unfortunately, many of us do this unknowingly out of habit or, worse, to please other people at the cost of our own precious happiness and sanity.

As you go through life this way, many negative influences have a way of creeping into your life without you even realizing it. So what do you do when this happens?

You could choose to do nothing and continue to be influenced by the negative things or people in your life — or you could do something about it and choose what influences to include in your life.

Life’s too short to live at the bequest of false purposes or controlling people. It’s time for you to take responsibility for your own life and live the life you were meant to.

Below are 5 actions you can take to ensure that positive influences and opportunities dominate your life instead of negative ones.

#1 — Take an inventory of the influences in your life — both positive and negative.

If you are like me and want to live your life intentionally with more meaning, you must first take note of present influences in your life to ensure there isn’t anything (or anyone) holding you back.

It’s pretty much impossible for you to move forward in your purpose if you are constantly being beaten down by naysayers or other negative circumstances that you may find yourself in.

One major negative circumstance that can really cripple your progress toward a fulfilling life purpose is a toxic job, boss, or work environment. You likely spend way too much time each week to suffer through the throws of one or more of these types of negative influences.

To be more fulfilled in your life purpose, the key is to surround yourself with positive influences, including people, things, behaviors, and habits.

Being around an extremely positive person is infectious. Unfortunately, the same is true for negative people — only the proper descriptive words for this type of influence are poisonous or toxic.

It would be best if you had less of these types of things or people in your life. Stop giving these negative influences your attention, and they will naturally leave you.

Focus on adding more positive influences to your everyday life, and you will flourish. As the scale tips toward positivity, there will be no holding you back from achieving the success you desire.

#2 — Clear out things that are no longer adding value.

To make room for positive influences/activities in your life, the first step is to clear out things that are no longer adding value.

Take a hard look at your negative inventory list and while doing so, be sure to detach from each item so you can look at them objectively without emotion.

Some things are easier to get rid of than others. For example — the people area can seem complicated, especially when the person is a family member or a good friend.

But you will find if you give less energy and attention to the negative people in your life, they almost disappear on their own as you make a conscious choice to make positive changes.

If you have a negative boss, ask for a transfer. If that’s not possible, find a new job.

If the company’s culture is negative and doesn't respect your home life, find a new job.

The article mentioned above, “A Four-Step Path to Deliberate Living,” also states it’s important to clear out unneeded possessions:

Get rid of possessions you no longer need or use. By selectively scaling back our lives we accomplish two goals: We prioritize and we create space. This space can be room to grow and change, or maybe it’s just breathing room.

If you don’t make room by clearing out negative limiting beliefs, habits, thoughts, people, clients, workplace, unneeded possessions, or other negative things, there will not be room to receive positive influences or opportunities into your life.

This action step must be completed before the remaining actions can be taken — otherwise, they will not be effective.

#3 — Learn something new every day.

One of the most effective strategies to add positive opportunities is to learn something new every day. This could be related to your profession, some other interest, or hobby.

According to the article “21 Fun Tools To Learn Something New Every Day” published on DevelopGoodHabits.com, continuous learning is critical to cultivating positive influences in your life.

Being committed to continuous learning is one of the greatest secrets of successful people. Continuous learning is the hallmark of a growth mindset, and it opens up opportunities for success in all aspects of a person’s life.

Mainly, by learning something new each day, you gain valuable experiences to help you deal with challenges in a positive way.

Striving to learn something new every day is a foolproof way to stay present in your life and set in motion new opportunities that may not have otherwise presented themselves.

Albert Einstein once said:

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”

Continuous learning keeps complacency and negativity at arm's length to keep it from creeping back in.

#4 — Seek out ways to meet new people.

Many chance encounters that happen are anything but that. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason — which includes the people that are put in our path.

If you never put forth the effort to meet new people, you will likely miss opportunities and other potential positive influencers in your life.

This has been a challenging year to attend networking events where you could typically meet new people, but luckily many of these events have moved to online meetings. Hence, there is still the possibility to network.

There are also many other types of events and courses that offer online communities. They are a great place to meet and network with like-minded people.

I actually enrolled in a couple of online courses earlier this year, and both offered outstanding online communities. I have met many others that provided positive encouragement and other opportunities to network.

#5— Travel to a new place you’ve never been.

Similar to learning something new, traveling to new places keeps you living life deliberately and on purpose. It causes you to be more conscious since it isn't a repetitious behavior.

It freshens your perspective and keeps you creative and intentional in purpose.

Be sure to record your positive impressions and takeaways regarding your travel experience. It helps and cements that positivity into your memories so they can be recalled to create a place you can visit again and again to produce those feelings.

Final thoughts.

An important aspect of life is to enjoy it and not just go through the motions unconsciously, but have real meaning and purpose. Life’s too short to be surrounded by negative circumstances that stop your progression to leading a fulfilling life.

Make the appropriate changes by beginning to take an inventory of the influences in your life, eliminating as many negative ones so that you don’t have anything holding you back from reaching your full potential.

You deserve it!

“There’s a difference between thinking you deserve to be happy and knowing that you are worthy of being happy. Your being alive makes worthiness your birthright. You alone are enough.” — Oprah Winfrey