Latest / Impact Ready / 201. Positive Peer Pressure: How Your Community Shapes Your Habits

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201. Positive Peer Pressure: How Your Community Shapes Your Habits · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hey team, welcome to the show. 201 episodes coming in hot.
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  So excited to be here with you. Going on to the third year of
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  doing this podcast. Last episode was all about being
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  rich in relationships and having social wealth.
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  Out of the five types of wealth that Sahil Bloom talks about,
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  social wealth is one that I highlighted in the last episode.
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  And for a good reason. I have been feeling rich in
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  relationships and community, especially in the last year of
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  my life. And ironically, this weekend, my
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  wife, unbeknownst to me, planned a little get together with some
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  of my friends who so graciously got together to celebrate my
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  200th episode of the podcast. Which is amazing because here I
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  am going along, taking off the things that I'm doing in my
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  life. Yeah, 200 episodes.
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  That's great. I wanted to celebrate it.
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  But then to have your friends come together and lift you up
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  and celebrate you too, for something that you know, it's,
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  it's cool, it's a big deal, but is it like a huge deal?
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  Probably not. But to get together and and
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  celebrate you is really awesome. And I felt so grateful and so
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  blessed to have a community around me who is willing to take
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  time out of their lives to celebrate something like this.
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  So team, if you are listening, my wonderful community of
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  friends who showed up for me, thank you.
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  I appreciate you more than you know, more than I can even
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  really say in the moment. But you are the definition of
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  what social wealth is today. In this episode, I want to talk
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  about peer pressure, but not the negative aspects of peer
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  pressure, positive peer pressure, the way we use it for
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  good to build structure and habits in our life that make us
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  better. Essentially, how to use peer
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  pressure to upgrade your life. Now, we all know peer pressure.
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  We have our own experiences and maybe our own connotation of
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  what that means and everything that comes along with it.
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  But today, let's start fresh and think about this through a new
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  lens. There is study after study that
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  demonstrates that humans want to follow the prescribed behavior
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  of a tribe. The quote UN quote normal
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  behavior of a group of individuals is something that
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  has been shown over and over again to be true.
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  People will adapt to fit into the group and one specific study
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  shows that this desire to fit in will often overpower the
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  individual desires of a person. They did this study where they
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  showed groups of people 2 sets of lines, just basic lines on a
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  paper, and the objective was to pick out which lines from each
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  group were the same length. Now when you look at the study
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  and the lines that they were shown, it's really obvious which
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  2 lines are the same length from each group.
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  But then the researchers started planting actors into the group
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  to disagree with the common sense of which answer was
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  obvious. They would say that no, it's
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  this different line that is matching the line from the first
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  group. And it was so obviously wrong
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  that the other line was so much longer than the first line.
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  But they were adamantly saying that this was the correct
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  answer, that these two lines matched, even though they very
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  clearly did not. And what the study found was
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  that even though people knew the right answer, when they were in
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  groups of people who were adamantly disagreeing and saying
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  something else, that individual would change their answer to
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  match that of the group. Even though they were very
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  certain that those were not the lines that matched, they would
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  change their answer and agree that they did.
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  And this power of the group increased as the number of
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  people in the group increased. So when there was, you know, a
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  one-on-one, so one person being asked the question and the other
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  one was an actor who was disagreeing with them, you know,
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  they would just think, oh, this person's a dummy in this group.
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  They don't get it. So they would stick with their
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  correct answer. They wouldn't change it.
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  And then if there were two actors versus the one
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  individual, they were still not as likely to change their
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  answer, even though the other two were adamantly disagreeing
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  with them. But if there were three or four
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  actors in the group all saying no, no, it's this line.
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  So often that person would change their answer to match the
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  group even though it was very clearly wrong.
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  And as the numbers increased up to 8 or 9, the faster the
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  individual would change their answer to match that of the
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  group. It was tribe mentality.
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  So why do we do this? Why do we change our answers or
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  our beliefs or the way that we show up and behave to fit in
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  with the group? Because the human mind knows how
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  to get along with others, and it wants to get along with others.
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  Humans are wired for social connection, and we know that to
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  be in a group of people is key for our survival.
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  Nobody wants to get kicked out of the tribe.
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  So we can see the power of this, the power of peer pressure, and
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  we've all experienced it at some point in our lives.
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  Many of us have had the chance to get very familiar with this
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  phenomenon in middle school or high school, those teenage years
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  between, I don't know, 12 and 15.
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  Man, there's such a gauntlet. Everyone's trying to find their
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  identity and claim their little corner of the world, and peer
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  pressure is rampant. You're trying to learn the
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  social dynamics of being in a group.
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  But what if peer pressure were used for good?
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  What if you leveraged it and you leverage group think and tribe
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  mentality to help you improve and upgrade your own life,
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  whether it's your systems or your routines or your habits?
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  This is absolutely possible and it's what people do when they
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  are very intentional about creating new habits.
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  And you've probably experienced this unconsciously.
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  I have a friend who is incredibly athletic.
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  Back in the day, when we were in our 20s, she had just moved to
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  Portland. She joined a run club to get to
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  know people in the city, and that run club became a social
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  outlet for her. But it also upgraded all of her
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  habits when it came to her health.
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  She started eating healthier. She started training regularly.
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  She was getting a better sleep routine.
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  She stopped smoking so that she could go out on her runs with
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  this crew. She essentially changed the
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  routines in her life to match those of the group that she was
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  running with, and as a result she became a much healthier
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  version of herself. She lost like 30 lbs.
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  Her energy got better and she became much happier.
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  The reason I tell the story is because it is a testament to the
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  power of being in a group, this positive peer pressure.
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  You know, when this woman arrived in Portland, she wasn't
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  the healthiest person. As I said, she was smoking, she
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  was partying a lot. She didn't feel great in her
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  body. And then to see her process,
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  it's just a massive transformation.
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  And what it tells us is that peer pressure, it doesn't always
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  have to be a negative influence. A lot of people upgrade their
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  routines and their habits when they get around different groups
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  of people who are doing those types of positive things.
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  Whether it's around health and fitness or just your attitude,
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  your your mental fitness, maybe pursuing a new hobby or a habit,
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  whatever it might be. The possibilities are endless
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  and it works really well. If you're trying to spend less
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  time on your screen and watching TV.
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  The last thing you need to be doing is spending time with
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  people who spend a lot of time on their screens and watching
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  TV. You're going to start behaving
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  differently if you start hanging out with people who hike outside
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  every weekend or meet weeknights for workouts or runs around the
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  waterfront. That's going to be a different
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  outcome. If you want to upgrade your
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  entrepreneur skills, for example, it's really helpful to
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  get around other entrepreneurs who are successful and working
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  really hard and having some positive achievements.
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  If you want to stop talking negatively about your life, it's
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  really helpful to get away from the people around you who speak
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  negatively about their lives. You're not going to see a lot of
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  change there, but if you start hanging out with people who see
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  the gratitude and the joy and the appreciation in their
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  circumstances, you're going to have a different outcome.
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  Humans are wired for this, as James Clear says.
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  He's the author of Atomic Habits.
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  When changing your habits means challenging the group think or
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  the mentality of the tribe, change can look very
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  unattractive. But when changing your habits
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  means fitting in with the tribe, change is very attractive.
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  So you can ask yourself a couple of questions that are really
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  powerful. First, ask yourself what habit
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  am I struggling with, whether it's to improve a habit or break
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  a habit. And then ask, do the people
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  around me help me make progress with this habit or do they
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  hinder me with this habit? Really powerful questions and
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  you can just do a little audit on your life and see where are
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  the areas that I'm struggling or feeling resistance.
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  And then ask those questions. The answers give you a lot of
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  insight as to whether or not peer pressure is being used for
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  good or not. The bottom line is changing a
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  habit or trying to improve something in your life, it's
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  going to take energy. It just is.
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  I know some people don't really like that idea, like they want
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  things to be very easy, but everything takes some kind of
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  energy. So changing a habit and making a
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  shift, it does require energy, but running up against the grain
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  of your culture, that requires extra effort.
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  It takes even more work than it would normally.
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  So if you're having a hard time changing your habits for the
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  better, find a tribe, find a Group, A community and network
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  where you would fit in with those new habits, where it would
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  be encouraged, where it would be celebrated.
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  And that takes much less energy because you don't have to go
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  against the grain of the culture.
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  And it makes it so much easier to stick with those new
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  positive, healthy habits and find joy in the shift.
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  So this week, I want to challenge you and encourage you
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  to start to look at peer pressure in your life and start
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  leveraging it for good because it can absolutely be a positive
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  influence and it can create a lot of ease when you are trying
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  to upgrade your routines, your systems, and your life overall.
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  So I hope this helps and I'm so glad you're here.
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  Thank you for listening to 201 episodes.
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  Have an awesome week. And as always, team, thank you
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  for being ready to Impact. Thanks for listening to Impact
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  Ready. I hope today's episode inspired
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  you to own your impact and recognize that you are powerful.
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  By elevating our energy and awareness, we can create
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  exponential change in this life. If you enjoyed today's insights,
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  share them with a friend and subscribe to the show for more.
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  I truly appreciate you. Thanks again for being here.