Do you design your life just like you design your parties?

How do you design your life? We design our homes, our careers. But what about designing who we meet with? Who we spend time with, whom we bond with?

Lately I was talking with our friends about it. How to choose people around you to spend your time with? With whom you go for a dinner or drinks on a weekend? With whom you travel or create other social circles.

It is at least as important as designing other aspects of our lives. Or maybe even more important.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” You probably heard this quote by Jim Rohn.

But researchers say it is even wider. You’re not the average of the FIVE people you surround with. It’s way bigger than that. You’re the average of all the people who surround you. So take a look around and make sure you’re in the right surroundings.

“Your friends really are your future”, argues David Burkus in his Medium article. “And the implication is that you don’t just need to be more deliberate about who you’re spending the most time with. You need to be examining your entire network and its influence on your life. You need to know where you sit inside the larger network of your social community.”

So how do you choose your friends? Can it be done or it just happens: you meet someone and you become friends as you become closer. And it is a pure fate?

My network is really big. I am quite well connected. But I know that my time to spend with others is very limited. So I try to chose who I want to spend my time with.

And I have the feeling of real agency here. If I want to be closer to someone I tell them so. And I put some energy into that. If you can tell this person has good influence on you, brings value to your life, inspires you and wishes you well, that is how you know it is a good person to create bonds with.

If on the other hand you can feel that someone drains energy from you, pulls you down, influences you in a bad way - you should probably avoid this person. To protect yourself.

Think about it like about designing your life. Your network around you is your environment and you have the power to shape it.