How to find REAL friends
Part 3: Healthy and Growing Friends
How to know if you are surrounded with growing and healthy people
After you have completed the positive/negative inventory and you have determined who are the givers and the takers, the last step for now is to be sure that you are in healthy and growing relationships. A healthy relationship is one built on bringing out your best not your worst. Most people have known people whom they once spend time with, that brought out the worst in them, causing negative life effects. This person might have been fun but just because someone is fun doesn’t mean they are good to be around.
A healthy relationship is a relationship where both people’s responsibilities are respected. Whether you have a demanding job, children, or married, the friend must be respectful of your responsibilities and act accordingly.
Do the people you spend time with care about your schedule? Do these same people respect what you have going on in your life or are they always trying to get you off point? When they know you have an early morning, are they respectful or do they try to keep you out all night? Are you constantly putting their responsibilities above yours? Or are you both respectful for the most part of each other’s responsibilities?
A healthy relationship is high on the importance list and so is a growing relationship. A growing relationship is one where both people grow, learn, and experience together. In a growing relationship we learn and evolve. Sometimes relationships can become the ‘remember that’ relationship.
‘Remember that’ relationships are those that stopped evolving. They are based on a friendship from years ago and every time you get together you reminisce about the past and all the stuff you and that person did then. The reason for this is that one person evolved and changed and the other is in the same place they were when the friendship began. Otherwise, if this weren’t true, you would be creating new memories with this person right now. Sometimes these relationships can feel safe for a while but become boring and old and eventually the two people go their separate ways with possible reunions with the ‘remember that’ people.
Are you in growing relationships? Not all relationships need to be constantly pushing you to excellence, however growth and moving in a similar direction is healthy. It is difficult to keep a relationship together when one person is working diligently to create a positive and productive future, when the other person is partying and has no concern for their future. Sometimes, it can be a situation of timing and eventually you two will match up and sometimes it can be that both people end up moving apart. If you are working to be successful and striving to achieve your life goals, spending time with people doing the same makes sense.
For the most part, I think everyone has experienced spending time with people because we have known them forever but having little in common. Some friendships do last forever but most relationships and people that we meet aren’t around forever and aren’t suppose to be. The term ‘cleaning house’ is relevant to this topic because by doing this inventory you are cleaning your proverbial house of friends. Cleaning house is a wonderful tool that promotes your progress, your happiness, and life success. By doing the inventory and honestly assessing the people you spend the most time with, you are jumping in the driver’s seat. No longer will you feel pushed around or stuck, you can change anything. Picking good quality and true friends in important and shouldn’t be taken lightly. You deserve good true friends; don’t settle for less.
