Having the best job in the world isn’t worth even the highest salary if you aren’t happy. And one of the most common reasons for job satisfaction or low workplace morale is because of the relationships we have with our colleagues, supervisors, other departmental employees, etc. In fact, many people say the reason they leave a job is due to the drama and toxic environment caused by others in their proximity. Proximity is the key word here.
Proximity is all about who you are spending the majority of your time with. It has nothing to do with how well you know your co-workers.
Jim Rohn, a well-known motivational speaker, wisely said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Isn’t that the truth! By nature, we tend to imitate and model our behavior based on the behaviors of others around us. What we see in others, we take and reshape to make it our own.
Take a moment to write down your responses to: “The five people I spend the most time with are_________.”
As you look at your list, ask yourself, Do these people have similar values? Are they supportive of my values? Do they fill me up or deplete me? This last one is a key point, and it’s so important, I want to repeat it:
Do my peers fill me up or deplete me?
To help explain this, I created a video that discusses this further:
Click to watch the Video: Are You a Maximizer or a Minimizer?
Try the Exercise
If you didn’t do the exercise from the video and you’d like to find out who depletes you and who fills you up, here are the steps:
- Get out a clean sheet of paper, and at the top, create two columns with “+” and a “-“ as headers.
- In the “+” column, write down all of the people who fill you up. Don’t just list people who make you happy. Think about the positive feelings you get when you’re with those people. These people are maximizers. These are the people who fill you up.
- In the “-“ column, write down a list of people who deplete you. These are the people who leave you feeling exhausted after spending time with them. These people are minimizers.
- Now you have the opportunity to make a choice. If you choose to deliberately limit the time you spend with minimizers, you’ll free yourself up to spend more time with maximizers, allowing yourself to be filled with more joy.
You can now use your new understanding and insight to help you develop closer and more meaningful relationships with the colleagues and peers you enjoy being around, and distance yourself from people who leave you feeling depleted.
Once you find yourself in tune and in sync with the maximizers, eliminating the minimizers in your life, you will notice huge changes taking place – in both your work and personal life. It really works!
