While listening to The Skinny Confidential podcast recently – as Julie Piatt was interviewed – the topic of who you let into your life came up and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’ve done a good job at letting go of relationships that feel negative, fake, or add more bad than good, but I hadn’t thought bigger than that.

If you think about it, we all let SO many people into our lives every week, even if we don’t realize it. From the news anchor or reality star on your TV, the person behind the podcast you’re listening, the author of the book you’re reading, to the people you work with, it’s a lot. While you aren’t ranking these people as your close friends (or even people you know), they still affect your life and state of mind. Kind of crazy, right?! And why you might think you only let people in who improve your life or whatever, it might not always be the case.

I’ve been thinking about ways to minimize who I’m letting into my life and my mind and it’s been so refreshing. I’ve gotten rid of a couple of podcasts that seem to clutter my mind rather than improve it, I’ve lessened the amount of mindless TV even just as back noise while cooking or something, I’ve muted a few more people on Instagram, and I’ve stopped working with a client that didn’t make me feel good.

Who do you let into your life? Who can you release?