I once heard that you are the average of 5 closest people in your life. Your success, motivation, will power and habits are affected by the people who you are keeping around you. I am very affected by the emotions of those around me. My insecure side will sometimes adopt similar traits to those around me while conversing with them. I’m not even a salesman.

In fact, I was once bargained up 100% for a conch shell in St. Kitts. So yeah, bargaining powers aren’t that great either. I’m just grateful I don’t have be selling conch shells to tourists to feed my family.

I really believe that who you choose to keep around you will affect you deeply. If you have people in your life with different priorities than you and are big parts of your life they will then affect your priorities. It could be unconsciously or not. They could have a positive impact or a negative one.

Maybe because I am an only child and seem to constantly need other’s approval. In the past (and unfortunately now) I would change my behavior to receive people’s approval. Not all the time, but enough of the time that I found a hard time figuring out what was important to me. To this day I am still figuring out what that completely entails. I don’t expect I will ever stop as life occurs.

It feels like it took me until I was 23 to be able to start figuring out what was important to me and start fighting for my own identity. It took me a long time to create my own sass, say ‘no’ and set my own boundaries. Not only set my boundaries, but stand by them.

As a women its assumed by society that we will generally give up our main priorities to make the significant others in our lives happy. Women do it so easily make sacrifices and concessions to give their others a step up. I have bent over backwards for others only to be put down or patronized when voicing my ambitions. I did put up with this behavior.

Setting a baseline for how I live my life has become a lifeline. If I waver from that baseline, from that commitment, than I know that something is wrong. Emotions and attitudes change daily based on your situation and the situation of those around you.

I am the decisions I make every day. My past, my experiences and my choices are big parts of my personal identity. Keeping my baseline and staying true to myself isn’t selfish. Staying strong and true to  yourself is you keeping your own identity.