This is Guest Post by Jacob Sokol.

“If you can tell me who your heroes are, I can tell you how you’re going to turn out in life.” -Warren Buffet

I’ve been interested in what my future will look like for a mighty long time. From fulfilling relationships to personal finances, the spectrums of potential circumstances that interest me are most definitely diversified. I want to be healthy, happy, handsomely wealthy and having fun while contributing to the world in a massively meaningful way. I knew that actualizing those intentions were possible, but i didn’t always have a clear blueprint for bringing me closer to those goals.

To be crystal clear, let me just put this out there: I’m not a psychic, not a gypsy, not a healer, not a channeler, not a medium, not a fortune-teller, not a spirit-speaker, not a witch-crafter, and i am definitely not a devil-worshiper. I do however believe in the power to predict our future, and even positively influence it as well.

Let me ask you this: How could you make it so an outcome that you want to achieve is inevitable?

Enter “Inevitability Thinking.” Inevitability Thinking is all about conditions and setting up the right set of circumstances so that what you want to happen will “automatically” do so.

Don’t Buy Ice Cream!

Here’s an example. If you wanted to stop eating Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream at night, one way to make that inevitable is not to buy it when you go grocery shopping. We’re going to use Inevitability Thinking to create the right set of influences in your life – ones that will bring you closer to who you want to become and where you want to go.

Before we go any further into the future though, let’s play a bit in the present moment. I want you to take this time to identify some information about yourself. First we need to look at who the five people that you spend the most time with are. That could include, but isn’t limited to:

• Colleagues
• Lovers
• Friends
• Family
• Roommates
• Hobbyists
• Social-networkers
• Etc…

Take the time to write down who those five people are. Really do it – you’re already reading this article, you might as well get the benefit from it. Now ask yourself some questions about those five people and answer honestly:

• How motivated are they?
• How healthy are they?
• How much money do they make?
• What are their habits?
• How happy are they?
• How productive are they?
• What are their goals?
• What are their relationships like?
• What are their eating habits like?
• Are they optimistic?

Think about the answers to those questions. Here comes the shocker…

If i didn’t know anything about you, except for whom the five people that you spent the most time with were, and what the characteristics of those five people are, I would have a pretty good idea of who YOU are – even if I’ve never met you!

Jim Rohn may have simply said it best here: “You are an average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with”. Wild stuff but the freak-show hasn’t completely closed yet. Check this out…

If I was to analyze that data, i could pretty accurately predict where you’ll be in the future based on these answers in the now. Wow! Let’s take a look at how we can put this knowledge into optimal action and create a set of circumstances conducive to making what you want inevitable.

5 Steps Toward Making Your Goals Inevitable

1. Ask yourself. “What does my ideal life look like?” It may help to think in terms of these categories:

• Physical
• Mental
• Emotional
• Spiritual
• Social
• Financial
• Creative

Once done, I suggest that you write down your answers and put them up somewhere that you’ll see daily (but not just yet.)

Helpful hint: I suggest dreaming BIG. Far-out! Unrealistic. Whatever … Pretend that it was impossible for you to fail. Then articulate those answers. Doing this plants a seed in your mind that has the potential to sprout through small steps and time.

2. Score Yourself. Now take out the list that you wrote down earlier identifying the five people that you currently spend the most time with. See if the people on your list have the same qualities that your ideal life has.

In other words: are the five people that you spend the most time with bringing you closer to your ideal life, or are they pulling you further away? Identify if they’re averaging you up, or dragging you down.

3. Survey Your Environment. Think thoroughly and make a list of five people that you currently know that will bring you closer to living the life you want. These are people who have the qualities that it takes to get where you want to go. You can look through your:

• Contacts
• Emails
• Job
• Gym
• Mind
• And every other possible place to identify these people.

Helpful hint: If you don’t have five extraordinary people in your life to list, start by writing down what the characteristics of those people would be. Be on the lookout for when the opportunity to connect with people of such caliber presents itself, and then, take action!

4. Set The Example. It’s time to adjust accordingly. I know this is a sensitive subject and we don’t want to just go throwing out our closest friends. A good friendship is a sacred and honored bond to be cherished (and made fun of too.) With that in mind, we can still choose to scale back the amount of time that we spend with people who are not in alignment with where we want our lives to be.

Do what you have to do to become the person that you know you can be. Be virtuous and act with wisdom, courage, truth, justice, temperance and love! Then when it does come time to hang out with old friends and family, you are the living exemplification of the change that you want to see.

5. Be The Answer. Ask yourself this quality question: who do I need to become to attract the type of people into my life that will average me up? Answer that question honestly. Then take baby steps towards becoming that person. If you do, before you know it, not only will those people be in your life, but you’ll be averaging yourself up also.

This sequence of steps was an example of adjusting who you spend your time with based on Inevitability Thinking. Equally as important as whom you’re spending your time with is what you’re spending your time doing. All of your activities either average you up toward being the type of person that achieves your goals, or they can take you further away from them as well.

Personally, if i wanted to average myself down, I would do this:

• Watch TV, especially the news.
• Listen to the radio, especially public.
• More Facebook, with lesser quality friends.
• Gossip and talk about other people’s business in my conversations.
• Hang out with people who have no interest in living an optimal life.

Currently, to “average myself up,” I do this:

• Listen to interviews with people that inspire me.
• Read books on subjects that I’m passionate about.
• Meditate and spend some time with the universe daily.
• Watch funny movies and documentaries on interesting ideas.
• Make sure the people who I’m communicating with online are awesome.
• Purposely pick what music i listen to depending on what mood i want to be in.

I also invite you to play with the idea of watching how you spend your time.

Ask Yourself This…

Ask yourself if what you’re doing, and who you’re doing it with, is bringing you closer to or further from the person that you know you can be. If it’s bringing you closer, that’s amazing. If it’s not, what are the circumstances that you need to put in place to make it inevitable that what you want to happen will?

Read more from Jacob about creating An Extraordinary Life at his blog, Sensophy.com. You can also follow him on Twitter.