Coaching practices for I've Started Noticing That Some of the Rooms and Group Chats I'm in Pull Me Toward a Version of Myself I Don't Respect and I Want to Spend More of My Time Around the People Who Quietly Bring Out My Better Self
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I've Started Noticing That Some of the Rooms and Group Chats I'm in Pull Me Toward a Version of Myself I Don't Respect and I Want to Spend More of My Time Around the People Who Quietly Bring Out My Better Self, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’ve started noticing that some of the rooms and group chats I’m in pull me toward a version of myself I don’t respect, and I want to spend more of my time around the people who quietly bring out my better self.
- I notice I’m drawn to people who confirm the worst about me and uneasy around the ones who think well of me
- I’ve noticed I slowly become like whoever I’m around, and lately the people closest to me bring out a smaller, more cynical version of me
- Everyone in my circle thinks exactly like I do, and lately it feels less like support and more like a closed loop
- I keep trying to change by sheer willpower while spending all my time around people who pull me right back to my old normal
Practices that may help
- Cultivating a community of mutual virtue
Choose your regular social environments with the question: "Does this community draw out my better self?"
Confucian Self-Cultivation: The Mencius Approach - Cultivate identity-safe relationships
Build relationships in which being known accurately — not just approved of — is the norm.
Self-Verification Theory, Made Practical - Cultivate relationships with moral exemplars
Deliberately build closeness with people whose character consistently elevates you.
Elevation: The Emotion That Lifts You - Use similarity to connect, not to seek validation
Seeking people who agree with everything you believe produces an echo chamber, not a support network.
The Similarity-Attraction Effect (Donn Byrne) - Engineer your proximity (peer group)
“Who you spend time with is who you become” — treat your environment as a force, not a backdrop.
Tony Robbins’ Core Practices - Choose whose mind you spend time in
Spend time with the best minds — living or dead — and guard against the rest pulling you down.
Seneca on Time, Made Practical - Engineer your social environment to support the behaviors you want
The people around you are the most powerful environmental determinant of behavior — choose and structure social exposure intentionally.
Environment Design for Behavior Change - Use social transitions to change the norms around your behavior
When your social group changes, use the transition to adopt the behavioral norms of the new group rather than carrying old ones.
The Habit Discontinuity Effect - Identify your center of gravity on the spiral
Find the value system that currently organizes most of your daily behavior and motivation.
Spiral Dynamics, Made Practical - Join a small accountability group
Report to a small group rather than one person to add redundancy and social proof.
Accountability Partners
Related concerns
- Who You Surround Yourself With
Choose your regular social environments with the question: "Does this community draw out my better self?"
Cultivating a community of mutual virtue
- Choosing Your Peer Group
Choose your regular social environments with the question: "Does this community draw out my better self?"
- When Elevation Emotion Community Moral Exemplars
Deliberately build closeness with people whose character consistently elevates you.
Cultivate relationships with moral exemplars
- Peer Group Influence
"People like you do this" is far more persuasive than "a lot of people do this."
Use peer-specific social proof, not generic popularity
- When Blue Zone Principles Right Tribe
Obesity, smoking, and exercise habits are socially contagious — the people around you are your health environment.
Surround yourself with people whose behaviors align with your health goals
- Choice Architecture With Friends
Choice architecture — the arrangement of options in a decision environment — powerfully biases outcomes through default effects, ordering, salience, and framing. Thaler and Sunstein showed this is true whether or not anyone designed it deliberately, which means you can redesign your environment to bias yourself toward better choices.
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