Have you heard of the phrase ‘You are average of the five people you spend most time with? I’m sure you have, and if not that’s what we are going to be talking about in todays blog. Our associations, but in a way you don’t expect.

Millions of people until today have benefitted immensely from the people who first understood and shared this concept that we are the average of the people we associate with. This idea however was introduced a long time back… and people then did spend a lot of time with other people, in fact most of their time. Today however this idea in my opinion has evolved. While our personal development is directly related to the people we closely associate with, it is now directly related to some other things that we spend a lot of time with as well..

Like, the consumption of digital media.

When I came across this concept of our associations and my attention did not go to the people I spend the most time with (since they’re all great) but rather to the content I associate most with on social media. We all have experienced getting addicted to social media apps like Instagram and Facebook. I am a victim of these applications and it is now my routine to be scrolling through Instagram as soon as I wake up and for at least 20 minutes. Honestly this used to make me feel like shit and super guilty!

I used to spend the important hours of my day on things that were complete rubbish, my mind would randomly start thinking about DJ Khaleds son, I started looking at life like a meme, I was completely uninspired, demotivated and surprisingly unhappy with myself; but had no idea why.

With all the clutter on the internet, it is very easy for us all to feel this way. So one day, I took a look at the kind of people and pages that I was following and I realised that I am feeling like shit, because I am following and consuming shit content. That very day, I unfollowed every single meme or comedy page, every toxic celebrity like DJ Khaled and every other page that was not bringing me good value.

And instead, I followed leaders like Robin Sharma and Garry Vee, business motivation pages, marketing news pages, spiritual gurus and positive quote pages. My life changed from literally the next morning, I woke up and rather than looking at memes I had Garry Vee shouting at my face telling me I need to do something with my life and spiritual guru Gaur Gopal Das explaining to me the importance of being grateful and inspiring quotes of successful men and women.

It was the same morning routing I followed, woke up. picked up my phone. Opened Instagram. And started scrolling. However, the impact this morning kept me energized throughout the day.

If you feel like social media is pulling you down, let me break that for you. It’s not. You are pulling yourself down by following and consuming the content that you do. Social media gives you all the liberty to follow and unfollow anything you want. With most people spending close to three hours on social media every day, choose wisely what you want to consume in those three hours. It can either make you or break you. Either way, three hours at a time.