If you want to grow in life, you must constantly challenge yourself. What is better than challenging yourself is having someone challenge you. Not necessarily in a negative way, but in a way where you constantly have to think and reflect on what you say and how to say it.

When you put yourself in that situation, you force yourself to think. You begin to see different perspectives, how people react to certain things and how views differ among people. All these things are great to recognize. This leads to optimism for different opportunities and open to learning more in the future.

When you look at anyone you socialize with, be honest with yourself when picking them apart. How they talk, what they say and what they do are great things to start to look at. Do these things portray a positive impact on yourself or do they drain you after an afternoon of hanging out?

When you hang out with people constantly, you begin to pick up traits from them without even realizing it. It happens all the time. Why do you think we are so much like our parents? We are with them all the time growing through life. The saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” has been around a while for a reason.

It is important to consistently grow and never stay stagnant or worse, take steps back. There are billions of the people in the world to interact with, you want someone who is going to cheer you on through your battles, pick you up after being shot down and push perseverance on you even when you feel like giving up.

Life can get very complicated when you get into the wrong crowd. Being picky is never a bad thing. View your time as extremely precious all the time, because it will be wasted going down the wrong path. Remember the goal is to always be different, but never forget to also be better.