Should I cut someone out of my life?
It could be your secret to increased health & happiness
Most Mondays, we revisit one of the listener questions we’ve answered in a previous episode. It’s been edited for clarity & brevity.QUESTION
Is it right to cut loose people from your life? Specifically, people who hold you back or who have nothing to offer you on your journey to thrive. Are we meant to create a circle of people with the same interests and life goals, et cetera?
ANSWER
Ben: Yes.
It is absolutely okay to cut people out of your life, and yes, you are meant to find people who lift you up and have the same values you do.
We want to surround ourselves with people who want to see us win and who we want to see win.
Here’s one of the coolest studies I’ve come across recently, though it came out in 2007. Research found that there’s a 171% increase in the likelihood that you’ll become obese if you have a close mutual friend who is obese.
That tells us that it’s not just our genes. Our peer groups play a huge role in our health and happiness.
If your friends are going to McDonald’s every night, chugging sodas, and smoking Marlboros - well, that’s your environment. And we are all, on a very real level, products of our environment.
So, you need to put yourself first, and that looks a lot like putting yourself in an environment where you can win.
Remember the first line of our 100 Words of World-Class Health:
Create an environment in which it's easy to eat well, move often, sleep lots, think deeply, & create real connections.
So, yes, if you want to live a healthy, fulfilled life, find a peer group that has similar goals, aspirations, values, and behaviors.
And if you want to shortcut to all that, get yourself to a CrossFit gym.