Positivity: Your Focus Determines Your Reality

We’ve all heard it before: you are the average of the five people you surround yourself with. I was reminded of just how much that influence matters this morning.

Many days can feel like Groundhog Day. I go to work, talk to the same people over a three-day cycle, and then start again. When that cycle is fueled by a negative message, it starts to wear you down. Often, the tone of your day is entirely dependent on who you’re talking to. If they have a negative slant, the conversation follows. If their primary filter is a negative one, even a success gets a “dark” spin.

Today, however, I was reminded of how vital it is to talk to a positive person. I met up for a walk with a former colleague and mentee. We talked about our lives, our families, and our vacation. Then, we spent an hour talking about our shared hobby: writing. I started my workday with a smile on my face, feeling a way I haven’t felt in a long time.

Was our conversation all “rainbows and unicorns”? No. She has some hard things going on in her life, but she tackles them through a positive filter. Her life is built around her hobbies, her friends, and her outside activities. She works hard and contributes well, but work simply isn’t high on her list of priorities. If I had to guess, it sits somewhere at number nine or ten.

I realized that for most of my career, work wasn’t just in the top three—it was the frame the whole list was sitting in. Seeing her list made me realize I need to stop ‘editing’ my life around my job and start building a life that my job simply supports. It is a lesson I wished I had learned earlier.

Maybe Gen Z has it figured out.

Talking about her writing and my blog was incredibly fun. While I’ve mentioned this hobby before, this was the first time I’ve actually talked to someone else who does it in real life. It was invigorating to discuss the details, the joy, and the struggles without judgment.

I can see now why finding a community is so important to fanning the flames. To be honest, my desire to write has been slowing lately. I have a theory about new bloggers: they have a story, they enjoy telling it, but once that story is told, they die out. They feel like there is nothing left to say. I was scared to think in a few months I may run out of stories.

But engaging with someone else made a difference. Seeing how she enjoys the process reminded me why I started. It made me want to get back at it.

Three Lessons from a One-Hour Walk

1. Find Your Tribe If I want to grow a writing hobby and make it part of my daily life, I need to widen my circle. My friend has taken creative writing classes and joined a writing group; it has become part of her identity. It’s not enough to just pound words into a keyboard in isolation; I need to find a “tribe” that can support me as I explore.

I have been focussed on finding my FIRE tribe. What I need to focus on finding tribes from my other interests.

2. Work is a Means, Not an End This is a lesson I know, but easily forget. Here is a 30-year-old with 25 years of career ahead of her, and she has a better perspective than I do. Work is simply not a big part of who she is as a person. As I look toward the end of my career, I need to find more people like her who can show me the “other side”—how to build a life that isn’t centered on a paycheck. Where do I sign up for the Gen Z lifestyle? Are there do overs?

3. Positivity is a Springboard That one-hour walk left me feeling more cheerful than I have in a long time. Positivity produces energy and forward progress; it feeds on itself and leads to new discoveries. While I may never be the person who has a positive filter for everything, I need these moments of self-generated positivity to keep the darkness at bay.

She may be a Padawan (mentee) of mine from work but she has much to show the Master (mentor).

The Next Chapter

Your focus truly determines your reality. If I choose to doom-scroll, I know where I’ll end up. But if I consciously feed my mind with the right material—and more importantly, the right people—I will naturally go where I want to go.

This is vital for my retirement. One of the main reasons I’m looking to reach FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is to have the time to work on myself, find new adventures, and explore. A focus on positivity is the key to making that a success.

The Jedi were onto something. Focus on the negative, and you will be negative. Focus on anger, and you will be angry. Focus on boredom, and you will be bored (and boring).

Focus on the positive, and the possibilities are endless.