There is a well-worn claim that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Like most well-worn claims it is too neat to be literally true, and I have no particular faith in the arithmetic. However, the people around you set the range of what feels normal, and what feels normal is a far stronger determinant of behaviour than anything you consciously decide.

I have seen this most clearly in the physical domain. Spend time in a group where a long hard training session on a Saturday morning is simply what people do, and it becomes what you do, without any noticeable exertion of willpower. Spend time in a group where that would be considered eccentric, and the same session requires a small act of defiance every single week. Nothing about your motivation changed between those two environments. What changed was the baseline you were unconsciously calibrating against. 

The uncomfortable implication is that this deserves deliberate management, and most of us leave it entirely to chance. Some relationships are among the best things in our lives and are worth every hour we give them. Others we maintain purely through inertia and a few actively pull us toward a version of ourselves we do not want to be. It is worth being honest about which is which by noticing where your attention goes and adjusting at the margin: a little more time with the people who leave you thinking bigger, a little less with the ones who leave you flat. So, as a reflection for today: who do you come away from feeling more capable? And when did you last make time for them on purpose?