Peer pressure and social influence are two of the most common elements that youths and middle-aged persons in the society go through. So, defining are these stages of life that a slight mistake can ruin a person’s entire life. Young adults are most vulnerable, especially when their friends and peers socially impress them into joining the kind of errant behavior that is detrimental to the morals of life. Most of those exposed to social peer pressure usually give in, consequently ruining their morals. A few, however, manage to stand their ground, something that is rare. Dealing with peer pressure requires, among other things, being strictly principled and determined to overcome the social pressure against all the odds.
Upholding Principles: Both Personal and Biblical
The first important step in the bid to overcome peer pressure and social inference in a young man’s life is to understand your personal principles and merge them with bible principles. Principles serve as standards for an individual’s life and would most certainly help you live up to who you want to become. Whereas personal principles may be helpful when standing up to what you want to be, it is important to establish and integrate another standard by which morality is defined. The infallibility of the word of God makes biblical principles the best to use as guidance upon your life. Merging biblical principles with yours, therefore, gives you a strong edge and a standard of life upon which to live up to in a way that a third party would not effectively misguide you.
Understand Decision-Making Well
The second step as far as managing peer pressure and standing your ground involves understanding the consequences, whether positive or negative, of any decision or activity you intend to engage in. Most persons who venture into errant behavior usually come to the point of regret at a later stage in life. Recollecting themselves, they acknowledge that the decisions they made were not worth are the consequences they face. Such persons are, therefore, products of poor decisions made in life.
To avoid taking a similar path to self-destruction, you should, therefore, evaluate each piece of advice offered to you by your peers or age-mates on the positive or negative consequences it is bound to pose upon you in the short and long term. Most youths find themselves at crossroads of making positive decisions since they are blinded by the short-term benefits of their errant behavior, and thus become ignorant of the negative consequences to be experienced in the long term.
Learn from Others’ Failures
The third important critical element on how to stand your ground and avoid peer pressure involves learning from others’ mistakes. The society we live in today is full of life examples of decisions that persons make yet turn out to be of negative consequence at a later point in life. The bible is also full of similar cases; the most common of which is the young man in the parable of the prodigal son. As far as learning from others is concerned, you should use each case of moral decadence in the society as a case study upon which you learn of the negative consequences that you will face at a later point in life, should you take a similar path.