Picture this, you just got a promotion and you are so proud of yourself because you have finally gotten what you’ve been working so hard for. But your co-workers don’t seem to be so proud of you, that they may be even talking about how you have favoritism or unfair advantage. Or maybe you’ve been in a situation where you were really happy about personal achievement, but you find that people around you are belittling it. Or you’re working at a motivation to make a positive outcome or change in your life only to have your “friends” dismiss it as being unimportant. 

Well, it’s nice to think that people around us, all they want is to help us succeed, but there will be times that you will encounter a phenomenon that people call “crabs in a bucket mentality.” 

So, the “crab mentality” goes like: If you put one crab in a bucket, it can claw its way up and out and return to the wild. But something interesting happens if you put a bunch of crabs in the same bucket together. So, if one of them tries to climb out, the rest will pull it back into the bucket. And if the crab tries to climb out a second time, they will actually gang up on that crab and start picking it apart so that it can’t proceed. 

So, this means that none of the crabs can and will ever escape the bucket because they are all working against each other. So, the phrase that best describes this is “If I can’t have it, neither can you.”

Well, in real life, we are not actually physically trying to break each other down as crabs do, but we as humans, try to break each other’s spirits down when we see someone else is on their way to success. So, whether we are aware of it or not, our method of thinking, our behaviors, our decision-making processes are greatly influenced by the people we spend the most time with. 

This means that if you’re always around people who make poor life decisions in the things that you’re trying to improve. You are at risk of being pulled down by them. But, if you are able to build a different type of network when that emphasizes self-improvement, then there you will be more likely to achieve the success that you are seeking.

In our lives, we will encounter many types of people as we grow older. Some of them will greatly affect how we look at the world. So as to what the motivational speaker, Jim Rohn once said: “You are the average of the five people that you spend your most time with.” And by that, it is vital that in order for us to overcome the “crab mentality” we must surround ourselves with positivity and with people that want nothing but the success of everyone. That goes to show how and why it is important to surround yourself with the right people if you truly want to live a positive life and grow as a person.