But peer pressure is really just anytime our peers encourage us to change our values, attitudes, and behaviors. And it doesn’t always need to be a negative thing.

When surrounded by the right people, peer pressure can be positive.

If a peer encourages you to work hard, do well in school, exercise, eat a healthy diet, and be kind to others… it’s still peer pressure. It just happens to be encouraging a set of values that most people find acceptable.

People are always going to influence each other. And we should accept that. Unless you live in a bubble, there will always be family, friends, and peers that reshape who you are.

The goal isn’t to avoid peer pressure, but try to surround yourself with peer pressure that is healthy and productive.

If you hang around people who are always encouraging you to do things that go against your core values, then you may not want to keep hanging around those people.

On the other hand, if you hang around people who encourage you to act in ways that you want to change, then they can be an excellent source of motivation.

Want to start working out at the gym more often? Then find a friend or coworker who already does it on a regular basis. They can help you find a gym, teach you how to use the equipment, and encourage you to go 3-4 times every week.

Want to boost your grades at college? Then find a student in your class who knows the material really well. Try to set up a date to study for the next exam. Or exchange research papers and give each other constructive criticism.

These can both be considered a form of positive peer pressure. The key is you want to change something about your life, so you find people who can guide you to make that change.

A lot of the habits we do are influenced by our environment and the types of people we associate with. So when we take an active role in changing these things, we can often change our habits as well.

One of the number one ways recovering alcoholics fall back into their old habits is by continuing to hang around people who they associate with drinking.

Sometimes it’s direct peer pressure: “Come on man. Just one drink. It’s your birthday!” And other times it’s indirect peer pressure. Just the mere presence of being around your old friends make you want to crack open a beer.

These social influences play a huge role in how we think and behave.

The guide Regaining Consciousness talks about “vampires” that can ruin our life. These are people who suck up positivity from us, and motivate us to think and act in destructive ways. They are negative peer pressure.

“Vampire slayers” are the opposite. They crush the negativity in our lives and instead serve as a valuable source of inspiration and encouragement. They are positive peer pressure.

As painful as it may be, sometimes in life we need to separate ourselves from the vampires, and instead find ourselves some vampire slayers.

It can be difficult to end relationships with people who we’ve been friends with for a long time. But if they only feed our negative habits, it’s probably best for us to walk away.

Then we can build a more supportive social circle by finding people who encourage us to embody the values that we really want to have.

The takeaway message here is to pay close attention to the people you are engaged with on a frequent basis. Because they can have a very real effect on your thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors.

Instead, surround yourself with people who help bring out the better you.

I feel I’d be doing my readers a big disservice by not mentioning these excellent resources, and that’s why I want to dedicate a post solely to raise awareness toward these personal development sites that have been on my radar lately.

Of course, these sites are going to appeal to different people. Some are focused on minimalism, others are more about achieving goals and motivation, a couple are geared toward business, and some are very philosophical and introspective. Despite these differences, I believe a well-balanced individual can take something positive away from each one.

Before we get started, let me just share the criteria I’m using for choosing which sites to recommend:

1) It has to be a site related to some realm of personal development.

2) It has to be a site I honestly enjoy and read on a frequent basis.

2) It has to be a site that gets less traffic than me (one of my goals is to promote sites that I believe deserve more recognition).

So without further adieu, here are the personal development sites I highly recommend you check out. Also, feel free to share your own recommendations in the comment section below.

Advanced Riskology is a site that focuses on bold living and how to take smart risks. Blogger Tyler Tervooren recognizes that uncertainty is an unavoidable aspect of our lives, but the difference between successful people vs. not-so-successful people is their ability to face these uncertainties with a little more faith, courage, and intelligence. I recommend his site to anyone who is looking to better face their fears.

Free Download: Take This Job and Shove It

Featured Product: Guerrilla Influence Formula: More Followers for Your Cause

2. Becoming Minimalist

Becoming Minimalist is a very practice-based blog on how to live a more minimalist and self-sufficient lifestyle. The author Joshua Becker strongly believes in the “less is more” principle that is commonly advocated on minimalist blogs, but he does it in a down-to-earth way that can help anyone de-clutter the waste in their lives and realign their focus toward what really matters.

Featured Product: Inside-Out Simplicity: Life-Changing Keys to your Most Important Relationships

3. Beyond Growth

Duff McDuffee and Eric Schiller at Beyond Growth are probably some of the most critical and rational thinkers in the personal development community right now. They are never afraid to call out other personal development “experts” on their BS, and they approach personal development from a uniquely clear-headed perspective that is very rare to see these days when discussing these topics. I consider Beyond Growth a very essential counter-force to a lot of personal development mythology out there. It’s the place I go whenever I need some of my common beliefs and assumptions challenged. Definitely check them out, but be willing to do some serious thinking and reflection.

4. Hustler’s Notebook

JK Allen describes his blog The Hustler’s Notebook as “growth and development from a street-smart perspective.” His writings are thorough and comprehensive – but always fluff-free. JK seems to have an uncanny ability to get right at the core of motivation and “hustling,” without getting too ambiguous and conceptual. His ability to communicate simple but profound ideas is virtually unmatched by other bloggers. Not only does he know how to hustle, he knows how to hustle hard – I recommend his site to anyone who needs that extra boost in motivation.

5. Live Bold and Bloom

Live Bold and Bloom is a site by blogger Barrie Davenport which focuses on how we can live more meaningful and purposeful lives. She covers many areas in personal development, including balanced living, how to reframe our thoughts so that they are more positive and productive, and how to step outside of our comfort zone for truly transformational experiences. I recommend this site to anyone who is in need of positive and uplifting advice. Her posts will definitely make you smile.

Free Download: The Bold Living Guide: 7 Key Ingredients to a Meaningful Life

Featured Product: Discover Your Passion: A Step by Step Course for Creating the Life of Your Dreams

6. Living Authentically

Living Authentically is a site by Evan Hadkins which focuses on how to live at the core of who you really are. Evan takes a very personal and introspective approach to personal development, but it’s accompanied by very practical and informative advice. Unlike many other personal development bloggers, Evan respects individual’s independence and autonomy, but at the same time he offers highly applicable information to anyone who is seeking a more grounded direction in their lives (and he carefully does all of this without commanding you on how you “should” think, feel, or act). He also shares considerable knowledge on how to overcome trauma and other deep-rooted phobias and anxieties.

Free Download: Satisfaction from Authenticity

My Interview: Living Authentically with Evan Hadkins

7. Mindful Construct

Mindful Construct is an excellent blog that focuses on healthy mindfulness and other important teachings in psychology and personal development. The author Melissa Karnaze has a BS in Cognitive Science and is currently pursuing her Masters in Experimental Psychology. She offers a great amount of critical reading on some of the potential dangers of mindfulness and how we can avoid these dangerous while still maintaining the benefits of mindfulness. She advocates nurturing a healthy ego, questioning our programmed thinking, taking responsibility for our lives, practicing emotional intelligence, and self-love.

Free E-Class: Your Life is Your Construct

8. Mind Adventure

Mind Adventure is a very wise and practical resource on how to cultivate inner strength and outer freedom in our lives. The author Rob White is a former philosophy professor turned multi-millionaire after running successful businesses in a variety of industries including selling real estate and owning a couple restaurants. His bog is filled with stories, anecdotes, and metaphors that awaken readers to their true inner potential and how they can live happier and more successful lives. It’s worth noting that Rob was also kind enough to mail me a copy of his 30-day workbook 180, which is a phenomenal (and beautifully designed) step-by-step guide on how to cultivate new attitudes that improve your well-being in almost every domain of life. There’s no doubt about it, he’s a very generous and hard-working dude who fully lives by the maxim that “we reap what we sow.”

Featured Product: 180: Climbing The Two Ladders to Inner Strength and Outer Freedom

My Interview: Rob White of Mind Adventure

9. Sam Spurlin

Sam Spurlin is a writer, coach, and graduate student at Claremont University, currently pursuing his MA in Positive Psychology. His blog offers incredibly sensible advice on how to live more consciously, especially when it comes to our values, health, work, thinking, and relationships. Although he started his personal development journey within the minimalist movement, his current writings offer simple and useful strategies that anyone can begin using to integrate more consciousness into their daily living.

Featured Product: Regaining Consciousness

10. The Shrink for Entrepreneurs

Peter Shallard from The Shrink for Entrepreneurs is a psychotherapist and business consultant who specializes in helping entrepreneurs overcome the mental obstacles that often come with running a business. Being an entrepreneur himself, he has a very intimate understanding of the worries, fears, and anxieties that often plague aspiring business owners. His site is the #1 resource for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs who want to stay productive, but sane.

Free Download: Seek and Destroy: How To Identify Entrepreneurial Obstacles and Overcome Them (PDF)

My Interview: Peter Shallard: The Shrink for Entrepreneurs

Thanks for checking out these sites. I sincerely hope you found something valuable, and I’m sure these bloggers are going to keep providing quality content well into the future. Please feel free to recommend your personal favorites in the comment section below!

A belief reflects our “map of the world.” It helps us navigate through reality. And the kind of map we have is going to greatly affect the paths in life that we choose to take. A bad map may lead you into dark and muggy territory, while a good map leads you to warmth and sunshine.

The fact of the matter is, however, that we all need these beliefs to help guide our lives. Without them, we wander around mindlessly, without direction and purpose.

Everyone has a belief system.

Everyone has a belief system whether they choose to acknowledge it or not. The human mind is a “belief factory,” we are constantly observing our world, inferring things about it, and choosing what to do with this knowledge. We need to. Without beliefs, we’d never be able to make decisions or take action in our lives.

Therefore, every decision we make, and action we take, reflects a conscious or unconscious belief.

Beliefs aren’t perfect.

In general, the human mind isn’t perfect.

A lot of recent psychology research over the years has demonstrated that our minds are incredibly prone to error and bias. Very often, we aren’t capable of being 100% certain in our beliefs, so we have to make the best with what we have and hope it’s a good enough model of the world, despite our imperfections.

The map is not the territory.

There’s a popular mantra in self-help literature which says that “the map is not the territory.”

This is actually an idea first put forward by the Polish scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski. His view was that whenever we try to represent something in reality (whether through thoughts, concepts, or even physical representations like a map of a geographical region), we have to remember that the representation is never the thing we are trying to represent.

Instead, our representations of reality are always “best fits.”

Think about it: if you actually had a 100% accurate map of Iceland, then it would have to be the size and shape of Iceland.

Obviously, this is impractical. And our minds know this. So we take the information that comes through our senses and we generalize some of it, delete some of it, and manipulate some of it so that it better serves our practical needs.

Instinctually, your mind isn’t concerned about “absolute truths” about the universe – it just wants “truths” that help you function effectively throughout your immediate environment.

What influences our beliefs?

We often like to think that we come up with our beliefs solely on our own, and without any kind of outside influence, but the truth is that there are a wide array of different factors that shape our belief system. Some of the big ones I like to pay attention to include:

• Authority figures, especially from an early age: parents, teachers, priests, etc.
• Culture, like movies, music, TV, books, religion, tradition, politics, etc.
• Role models, such as the personal lives of musicians, authors, comedians, actors/actresses, philosophers, scientists, artists, celebrities, and even fictional characters.
• Our past experiences, even just one really memorable and/or traumatic event can condition us to have certain beliefs that persist for a lifetime.
• Knowledge, learning and discovering new things about reality can cause us to reshape our beliefs in the face of this new evidence
• Reflection and contemplation, actively introspecting to better understand our beliefs, thought patterns, and how they affect us.

All of these influences can affect our beliefs in a positive or negative way. The key is to be more aware of where our beliefs come from and what factors are shaping our map of the world. If we discover that we learned something unhelpful as a child, or from an old TV program, or whatever, then it may be necessary to filter out some of these negative influences and replace them with something that better suits our values and goals.

Beliefs must be subject to change.

Beliefs must be subject to change for two reasons.

One, as I mentioned before, our minds are imperfect and incredibly prone to error. Therefore, it is very reasonable that we will come across new evidence that will challenge our old beliefs and assumptions. When that time comes, it’s important to acknowledge that we may be wrong about something, and only then can we update and correct our map of world.

Note: This can be difficult, because it requires us to put aside personal biases and be honest with ourselves when we discover new information or evidence that challenges our existing beliefs.

Two, every individual has a different window into reality. That’s why our society has such a diverse range of different beliefs. Remember, your mind prefers truths that serve a function within the context of your life, not universal/absolute truths that are often disconnected from practical reality. Therefore, a belief may work perfectly well with one person, but not so well for another person.

The lesson here is that if you only determine your beliefs from outside influences – like your parents, schools, or government – then it is very likely that your “map of the world” won’t suit your interests, values, and goals. Those beliefs ultimately serve the people who found them to be useful in the first place, but they may not serve you in the same way. In the end, you have to think for yourself and question past authorities – this could mean that you will later abandon old beliefs that were taught to you from others.

If you want to read about some personal experiences I’ve had unlearning old and unhelpful beliefs, check out: 5 Lessons I Learned in School and Now Want to Forget.

If you’d like to learn more about changing beliefs and some of the tools you can use, then I recommend my other recent post: Personal Development Reprogramming.

Questions.

• What are some old beliefs that you have later needed to change because they didn’t help you?
• What has had the biggest influence on your beliefs?
• How often do you actively introspect and reflect on the beliefs that drive your behavior?

Leave answers in the comment section below!

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For example, one aspect of my life I’ve been trying to improve on is exercising more often. I haven’t become a health nut yet, but I’m starting to see improvement – and it’s motivating me to keep going. In fact, there’s been a couple times over the past month where people have commented on my “more fit” physique. I know I still have a lot more room for improvement, but it’s inspiring to get that kind of external validation because now I know that I’m doing something right.

Another thing I’ve been trying to work on more is making a viable income from The Emotion Machine. I really enjoy writing about these kinds of topics and it’s been my goal over the past two years to try and turn this into a way of making a living. For two years I wrote new content several times a week and experienced very minimal success when it came to making money; I experimented with advertising, affiliate marketing, and even trying to offer my own services, but nothing “clicked” right away. Instead there’s been a lot of trial-and-error involved, and the good news is that I’m finally beginning to see some success – and that too is motivating. I’m not making a living yet (I’m only 22 and still living with my parents), but now I at least have some money to splurge on some new clothes and music equipment. I haven’t had spending money in awhile, so it’s nice to finally look into my bank account and see something there.

Both of these “success stories” aren’t anything spectacular, but I recognize them as part of something that will continue to grow – and there is a power to that perspective.

Before I had any success with health or business, my attitude was much different. I was coming from a place of desperation. Sure, I liked exercising and working on this blog, but a part of me was dependent on seeing immediate results. I fell for the myth of overnight success, and when I wasn’t getting results right away I quickly got frustrated and started doubting myself. Luckily I remained faithful and persistent during these dark times and now I’m beginning to see it finally pay off.

And now that I’m seeing results in these domains of my life, I feel a weight beginning to lift from my shoulders. My desperation has turned into inspiration. Now I know that I can overcome obstacles. Now I know I can experience success if I really work at something. And now I also have some positive history to draw confidence from and continue to build off of.

I believe this quote really hits the crux of the message I want to send out right now. Once you begin making progress in your life you should cherish it, no matter how small or minor you think that progress is. Because reaching big goals is really nothing more than reaching a bunch of small goals over and over again. And when we recognize the value of reaching these small goals, we can motivate ourselves to accomplish some tremendous things in the long haul.

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