Friendship isn’t necessarily an easy thing.
It’s not necessarily easy to be a good friend, and it isn’t necessarily easy to find good friends.
But at the end of the day, the quality of your friendships will have a very profound impact on the quality of your life.
Great friends can contribute a great deal to a positive quality of life.
And on the flipside, low quality friends will mostly negatively impact you; and they can really take away from your life, sap your energy, and make you less happy.
But how do you know the difference between a positive friend and a negative friend?
How can you audit friendships to make sure that they’re actually good for you?
This is a very important question.
And in this post, you’re going to learn three methods for how to audit your friendships for quality, to make sure that you’re spending time with the right types of people.
1. You Can Tell Your Friends Good News
It may seem like a small thing, but a true friend will let you tell them your good news without trying to make it about them or take away from it.
A good friend also won’t try to compete with you, or feel threatened by your good news.
They’ll simply listen, celebrate with you, and express genuine happiness for you.
This is a very important sign that your friend is a good friend.
2. You Can Tell Your Friend Bad News
If you can tell your friend bad news without them judging you for it, blaming you for it, or berating you for it, that’s another good sign of a positive friendship.
A good friend will listen to your bad news, let you vent, and try to help you feel better.
They might even help you to come up with a plan to overcome whatever it is you’re dealing with.
They’ll also encourage you, reinforce you, and build you up.
A negative friend, on the other hand, will turn your bad day into an even worse day by making you feel bad about yourself.
3. They Show Up For You
Finally, a good friend will show up for you.
Now, as adults, we can’t always show up for everyone we care about 100% of the time.
That’s just not realistic.
But when it comes to good friends, you want to be able to feel that they put legitimate energy into showing up for you and being present for the important moments of your life.
If you have trouble detecting this energy from them, then it may be possible that the friendship is more one sided than mutual.
A good, positive friendship should consist of two people who contribute equal positive energy toward one another.
And this positive energy should definitely outweigh the negative energy.
In Conclusion
There you have it.
3 methods for auditing your friendships.
If your friendship can pass all three of these tests, then there’s a very good chance that it’s a positive, productive one; and that your life is better for it.
On the flipside, if you sense that your friendship is struggling in one of these areas, you might want to take a second look and really re-examine whether or not it’s adding to your life in a healthy way.
And finally, it’s always important to audit yourself as a friend as well.
Do you struggle to provide your friends with any of the three vital qualities listed above?
If so, then you may want to make a conscious effort to work on them, so that you yourself can also be a better friend, and thus attract better friends in your life as a result.
