Surround Yourself With People Who Push You

You get nothing from being comfortable. You get nothing from settling, you get nothing from staying put, you get nothing from “fine.” There is nothing wrong with comfortable, but don’t expect it to move you, don’t expect it to make you better, don’t expect evolution or growth. To become something more than you are, you must do something more than you’ve done.

We are who we are, and we are also who we are on the verge of being. In each step we take exists the foreshadowing of the next step, a near future echoing into the present. And to get to that place, to become that person, there must be a push, there must be an exertion, there must be a reach.

Sometimes the motivation comes from within, sometimes we feel it in ourselves, almost like a future-self calling to us, reaching its hand backward to pull us closer, but growth is best spurred internally and externally at once. We are who we are and we are who we are with, and it is up to us to decide who that is.

So surround yourself with people who push you. Surround yourself with people who see that future you and want to help you be it. Surround yourself with people who make you jump into alpine streams when you’re having a bad day because they know you need it, even — and especially — if you don’t want it. Surround yourself with people who know what you deserve and tell you to demand it. Surround yourself with people who will call you on your bullshit. Surround yourself with people who know you can do better than you’re doing and tell you so.

Surround yourself with people who make you sleep outside even when its cold because when you wake up in the middle of the night and your vision is filled with stars, everything will suddenly make sense.

Surround yourself with people who have confidence in you when you can’t manage to conjure it up in yourself. Surround yourself with people who won’t let you get away with things. Surround yourself with people who make you leap out of your comfort zone. Surround yourself with people who make you walk farther, climb higher, and go longer than you really feel like doing because they know the view at the end will be worth it. Surround yourself with people who love you too much to let you settle. Surround yourself with people who make you wake up to watch the sun rise. Surround yourself with people who will tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear.

Surround yourself with these people not because it will feel easy, or comfortable, or even safe. Surround yourself with these people because they are the ones that will electrify you, will make you feel the blood in your veins, will remind you that there is something bigger out there and you need to go get it.

Surround yourself with these people, and give back to them, too. Push them the way they push you. You’ll wind up pulling each other along. You’ll wind up both being all the better for that push.