Are you becoming who you want to be?

Who do you aspire to be? How’s your future in five to ten years from now? Do you want to be successful? Do you want to be a person of influence? A person of substance? What are your goals, ambitions, and passion? And the question is: Are you becoming who you want to be?

Do you know that you can become who you want to be today, not tomorrow?

This is the most important question to as yourself, especially today — not in the future, because you become who and what you want to be today, not tomorrow.

Most people, go about life thinking that success will fall from the sky — They are living their life as in like they don't have goals, ambitions, and dreams to achieve. They go about wishing, rather than planning.

Let me tell you — You can live as an entrepreneur, CEO, and the greatest creator, and innovator of all time now, rather than tomorrow. You don’t need to fake it, you just need to become.

How do you become? Someone may ask

The first question you should ask is: Who am I around?

Never underestimate the power of influence because life is about positive and negative influence. It starts with you analyzing the circle of your influence, and that is; the people you surround yourself with.

The influence of those around us is so powerful! And many a times we don’t even realize, that we are been influenced.

Take a closer look and you’ll understand the importance of this key principle, which is: who you spend most of your time with, you adapt to their standards, character, habits and personality traits.

Jim Rohn once said, “It's easy to let influences shape our lives, to let associations determine our direction, to let persuasions overwhelm us, to let tides take us, to let pressures take us and the big question is, are we letting ourselves become what we wish to become?”

If you spend most of your time with mediocre people, you are likely to be mediocre. If you spend time with gossipers, you’re likely to be a gossiper. If you spend most of your time with lazy people, you’re likely to be lazy. If you spend your time with party groovers, you’re likely to adapt.

You may not see it now, however, if you analyze the major people around you. and their influences.

You are likely to see that you have become like them — For instance, if you spend most of your time with people who don’t read books, invest and reinvest their money — who don’t speak any influence, nothing of personal development and are not serious about life.

Are not serious about the future and their conversations does not benefit anything concerning your ambitions, goals, and dreams— Don’t kid yourself, you will be as much as like them; maybe you have become them.

You will look five years or ten years from now and ask yourself and say, who have I become? Don’t look further, just look at the circle of your influence, and the people you have always spend most of your time with.

Put it in mind and let it be a life principle and know that: who you spend your time with plays a huge role in who and what you become. The key then will be analyzing the circle of your influence and start making changes soon or later.

You may say, I love my friends and it’s just casual friendship.

It's okay to have casual friends, as long as you give them casual time, not serious time. You may not cut them, but you can limit them, however, make sure to spend your major time with major influences and spend your minor time with minor influences.

Moreover understand that the key principle here is: how much of your time you spend with them. Just as much as there is a saying that says “time is the most important commodity.”

Be smart and ask yourself

Who am I around? What are they doing to me? How have they developed my mind? Is that okay? What have they got mereading? How have they got me feeling and thinking? What have they got me listening to? Where have they got me going? How have they got me talking? Have I adapted to their standards, traits, values and behavior? Am I becoming like them?

What have you allowed to affect your life? It's important to analyze how influence has shaped your life, and how peer-pressure has played a role in your life and who are becoming.

If you really want to be successful and you are serious about life, you’ll know that time is very important and who you spend most of your time with, plays a huge role in who you become or are becoming. And if it is not taking you where you want to be five years or 10 years from now, then you might consider a change.

If you really want to be successful and you are serious about the life you are chasing and want to see in the future.

You’ll have to disassociate yourself from the bad influence and break away and start spending your time with those whom you likely want to see yourself like.

After this analysis and self-introspection which is based on your passion, ambitions, goals, and dreams you’ll have to start spending time with people who are like-minded, especially if you have realized that your circle of influence has been negative on who you are becoming — you must be the judge and you alone have the power.

You’ll have to create an expanded association, which is spending time with the right people which are people of self-discipline, people of character, people of substance and culture. People who understand philosophy, success, and accomplishment.

Find some successful people who are aligned with your dreams, goals, ambitions, and passion. Spend most of your time with them, learn from them, and associate yourself with them, and this is called an association on purpose.

Its a key to becoming who you want to be! It starts with having a serious study of how others are influencing you. It starts by checking the circle of your influence, which are major people or the sum total of five people whom you always spend your time with.

Don’t kid yourself. Your contact list and social influence show the seriousness of how bad you want to be successful and sometimes you’ll have to make choices that are hard, which is cutting some friends who are of negative influence.

If they can’t contribute to your future, and they can’t have any meaningful conversation of influence on who you become, which is according to your ambitions, goals, dreams, and passion. Don’t put time and effort into the wrong place, you’ll regret in ten years from now — This is the harsh truth, but its key to success because success is who you become.

Early in my life through the teachings of the great Jim Rohn, I learned that success is not what you have, but success is who you became. What you have is a measure of materialism, which has greatly become a definition of the modern society.

And on the other hand who you become, is a measure of your value, potential, skills, passion, character, success traits, habits and personality you have developed.