7 Steps for Handling Friends Who Drag You Down
Friends are special people. To be brutally honest with you, you would be lonelier than a single billionaire if you had no shoulders to lean on. More often than not, your friends are the ones you go to when you are bored. They are the first people to call when you need someone to hang out. And they are a source of inspiration for you when life makes no sense.
But friends can be somewhat toxic, too. They can be frustrating. And they can bring you down. Sometimes they will add value to your life, sometimes they won’t.
While some people in your friends’ list will treat you with respect, some will drag you down, and they won’t even know they are doing it. Or, you yourself could be the reason why they are letting you down.
Because it is hard to put blames on yourself, or them, it is significant to follow the below steps to handle a friendship you believe is holding you back.
1. Determine the Area of Friction
A friendship is like a credit card and an ATM machine. If you provide the wrong password for the card, the machine will lock you out. Sometimes we feel locked out of a friendship because of differences in interests. Obviously, you expect some sort of friction if your interests are dissimilar to those of your friend(s). But you just can’t call everything off because your significant other is different from you. So, first identify what doesn’t make you and your friends agree to, and then you find out who really is on the wrong side. If you do this, you will have a reasonable answer soon enough.
2. Review the Worthiness of the Friendship
You have to set some standards for just about everything you do under the sun. If you don’t, nothing you do, have, or want to pursue will be of any value. Friendships must have values too. To find out whether you are hanging out with the right people, you need to find out whether the friendship has any value in the first place. Do you friends have the same goals as you? If they don’t, it may be a sign that the worthiness of the friendship is quite lower than you’d expected.
3. Examine Yourself
Perhaps you could be the one in the wrong side. You friends may be ignoring you because of a silly mistake or your naïve approach to the friendship. Honestly, the only best way to find out is to examine yourself.
4. Excuse Yourself from the Friendship
Walking away from a friendship isn’t a perfect show, but sometimes it can be the best thing to do. It creates a space between you and the friends who are dragging you down, leaving you with only those who truly matter.
5. Determine Whether You Share Similar Interests
Sometimes you feel your friends are dragging you down because they do not share the same interest as you do. Again, you need to examine this by understanding the interest of each person. Then, try the very best possible to standardize your interests for the betterment of the relationship.
6. Make Your Expectations Clear
The feeling that the friends you have now aren’t the best may be because you have not let them know what you expect from a friendship. Unless you make your expectations clear, you will always feel like they are dragging you down.
7. Talk About It
Tell them about it. They need to know. Sometimes the best way to handle friends who drag you down is to tell them what you feel, outright.
