How to Be a Good Friend

They say friendship is a lost art. I don’t know if that’s an overstatement, but as a social confidence coach, I do know that many people don’t truly grasp how to be a good friend.

Their friendships are frail and superficial. They don’t last and they don’t provide the positive experiences they could. I think it’s important for most of us to learn on our own how to be a good friend.

It’s not something we learn in school, it’s not something our parents teach us past a certain short point. Considering this, I want to share with you 7 key principles I believe it’s crucial to follow in order to be a good friend.

1. Make an Effort to Meet

Many of us are so busy and far from each other today that it’s hard to keep in touch. Nevertheless, a good friend will always make an effort to meet with their friends; simply because they are important enough.

Don’t just wait for your friends to give you a call and invite you to hang out. Take the initiative yourself.

Don’t look at the fact you don’t have a lot of time or they live 500 miles away as an insurmountable obstacle. Look at it as a mere logistical setback that you’ll have to work around. And try to find ways to overcome them.

2. Be Honest

From my perspective, honesty is one of the central pillars of friendship. The fact you’re honest with a person is what makes them trust you.

They know they can rely on you to give them an honest opinion and to be genuine with them. This kind of reliance is what makes people bond and develop strong friendships.

I know sometimes it can be hard to be honest, because you may hurt a person’s feelings or make them feel bad. Nevertheless, even in these situations, honesty is the way to go if you want to be a good friend.  Don’t make compromises in this area.

If you lack the confidence to be open and honest with others, check out this presentation I created. It will show you exactly how to deal with this problem.

3. Be Constructive

There’s almost nothing worse than chatting with a friend and listening to them complaining non-stop, or putting down any positive idea you have. This kind of an attitude can completely take the fun out of an interaction.

A big part of learning how to be a good friend is developing a constructive conversation style.

It doesn’t mean that you never say anything negative. It means that overall, you focus on the positive rather than the negative during a conversation, and you keep it fun and upbeat. When this is your default attitude, you’re the kind of person others always look forward to meeting again.

4. Treat Your Friends as Your Equals

Nobody likes people with a condescending attitude, who constantly tell you you’re wrong and “this is the right way to do it”.

Treat your friends as your equals. Keep in mind that you have your flaws and your strengths, just as they have theirs. You are not superior to them, and they are not superior to you either. Come from this place when interacting with them, and they’ll adore your demeanor.

And if sometimes you absolutely believe that you are superior to somebody, then perhaps they’re not the kind of person you want to build a solid friendship with in the first place.

5. Keep Your Promises

Keeping your promises is the other essential component for building trust besides honesty.

The trick is whenever you have the impulse to make a promise, to first ask yourself: “How hard will it realistically be for me to keep this promise?” so you become fully aware of the realism of the promise.

If it’s very hard or unlikely that you’ll keep your promise, then don’t make that promise to begin with. And if you do make it, then do everything in your power to keep it. Once you go on the path of breaking promises, it’s hard to regain that trust you will have lost.

6. Remember and Take Into Account Your Friends’ Preferences

It’s always nice when a friend invites me to a party with a lot of Latin music, since I like that kind of music, and not to one with a lot of rock music, since I don’t like it.

Besides the fact it creates a better experience for me, it shows that my friend knows my preferences and takes them into consideration. I know my needs and wants matter for them, and this makes them a good friend.

You shouldn’t constantly sacrifice your needs for those of your friends, but you should seek to make an experience positive for them as well as you.

7. Help Them

Last but not least, discovering how to be a good friend means willing to provide help for your friends when they need it.

This help can range from something small but meaningful such as a few words of encouragement, to something that requires more of an investment, such as lending them your car for a day.

These kinds of gestures ultimately prove how strong a friendship is. If two people frequently help each other and they are willing to go to some length to do so, they are not just friends, they are good friends.

Now that you know how to be a good friend, I invite you to take one step further and put this know-how into practice. Actually be a good friend to the persons you want to be to.  It will be worth it.

As a final thought, bear in mind that a friendships goes both ways. So, everything you do for a person to be a good friend to them, it’s only natural to expect in return. If they do not reciprocate, you may want to reevaluate your relationship.

In my experience, it’s those win-win friendships where both parties show a lot of respect, positivity and appreciation for each other that are the most fulfilling. These are the friendships that you’ll always think of fondly and you’ll treasure forever.

Image courtesy of jonandesign

The Importance of Friendship

I believe the importance of friendship is something that simply cannot be overstated. Nevertheless, friendship is something that we as a society pay little attention to.

We seek to make money, achieve success, find love and have a family, but we often mislay making friends somewhere in the category “and others”, which we’ll eventually focus on if we have the time.

As a social confidence coach, I’ve witnessed firsthand the importance of friendship. And I think it’s time to give friendship the right of way it deserves. Here’s why.

We Are Social Creatures

There is an overwhelming amount of evidence in fields like anthropology and evolutionary psychology that we humans are an extremely gregarious species.

For most of our history we lived in bands, tribes and communities where we knew many people and we interacted with them on a regular basis. Being social was the norm.

This until recently, when we started isolating ourselves from others in our spacious houses and apartments, perhaps living with one or two other people that we expect to fulfill all the crucial roles we require in our lives.

Not only that we humans like to socialize with others, but we need it. People who don’t socialize for prolonged periods of time begin feeling lonely, depressed, physically ill and even suicidal. Not having a social life is no joking matter.

This makes a solid case not only for the importance of friendship, but for the importance of a rich social life overall, which includes friends, colleagues, acquaintances and so on. Now let’s take a look at some of the particular benefits that friends bring into one’s existence.

1. Friendship Equals Deep Connection

A good friend is someone you have meaningful commonalities with. Maybe you believe in the same cause, you have similar core values, or you are passionate about the same things.

These meaningful commonalities create a deep connection. There is a strong bond between you and your friends. And this bond with other people gives life a lot more purpose.

2. Your Friends Accept You As You Are

The way I understand friends, they are individuals who know you as you are, with your strengths and flaws, and they accept you and respect you as you are.

Thus, they make you feel appreciated and more importantly, they make you feel worthy of appreciation. You don’t feel the need to impress them and you can always be yourself around them.

3. Interacting With Friends Is Extremely Fun

Since your friends are people you connect with at a deep level and people who accept you as you are, hanging out with them couldn’t be anything other than fun.

When me and my friends go out, we can talk about something as trivial as chinaware, and we’ll still have a blast. Because when it comes to chatting with friends, the people make the experience a lot more than the things you talk about.

4. Friends Are There For You

True friends help each other out. Even more significant, they know that they can count on each other for support, whether it’s a piece of advice, a few words of encouragement, a small loan or a hand to move the furniture.

Being able to rely on a bunch of people like that makes your life better and it also gives you more confidence to go for what you want in life. That’s one of the main reasons why the importance of friendship is stupendous.

So, What’s Next?

Now that you understand the importance of friendship, it’s time to capitalize on this know-how.

The first thing I encourage you to do is to take a good look at your friendships. Based on the ideas I’ve underlines here, would you say you have true friends? How many of them?

If the answer to these questions is “No” or “Yeah, about 0.75 friends”, this is an excellent moment to consider revamping your social life.

I can tell you from experience that no matter who you are, you can have many true friends and enjoy a rich social life. They key is to meet lots of people, interact with them, be open and cultivate the relationships with those people you resonate with the most.

And the key to all of this is to have social confidence. If you lack social confidence right now, this is the crucial trait that you’ll want to develop.

By the way: check out this presentation I created to learn how to gain social confidence and feel at ease socializing with anybody. I think you’ll find it very useful.

Grasping the importance of friendship is the first essential step not only towards making friends, but also towards building an overall better life, in which you are happier, more driven and more successful as an individual.

Will you take the other steps as well?

Image courtesy of jillis