Friendship: How to relate with your friends in 5 steps.

In my previous article, How well do you know your friends? , I discussed who a friend is and how to identify one. Choosing friends are sometimes easy, but the greatest task here is how to relate with them as well as maintaining that friendship to last for a lifetime. Many views or thoughts has  been expressed by other  others because they worked for them thus decided to share to help others. In my view, the following steps will help you relate well with friends as it helped me….

These are the simple steps to follow if you want to have a great and lasting relationship with your friends.

BE INDEPENDENT BUT WORK TOGETHER:

As an individual, you should not depend on your friend for your means of livelihood… Most of the time, we tend to depend too much on our friends. This is for either our means of livelihood or something else.

When you are always at the receiving end of friend or vice-versa, the relationship begins to be identified towards a different direction and the purpose gets lost. In friendship, You should not be influenced or controlled by each other,  rather listen and understand each other. You can all make the same comment, because of the understanding you have of each other yet not agree to everything. We agree to disagree.

To Work together means, you must share and help each other out in times of need, joy, sadness, pain and everything that comes with friendship and relationships. Remember you cannot expect someone to fill you or make you whole. you must be whole on your own. What works for you may not work for your friend. This should not be a reason you to sink or end the friendship.

HAVE A NEUTRAL MINDSET:

You would have to train your mind for it to be neutral. It is not the action that hurts another but how the action makes us feel. Usually, it is not the intention of our friends to hurt us. The way we get a message across might not mean anything to us but to our friends it does.

Do not sit in sadness or allow your friend to do so. Life is a journey and just as there are positive outcome so does negative outcome present itself. Although the atmosphere used to welcome the joy is different from that of sadness, training the mind to accept both as part of life would help with your friendship growth.

Also there should be no negative feelings such as jealousy or envy in friendship. Being pure and genuine about your friends achievement strengthens the relationship. It brings trust into the relationship and helps you to grow. Be the Joy of your friends and light up their lives in any little way you find.

DRAW BOUNDARIES IN YOUR FRIENDSHIP

We mostly make mistakes by not telling people who we are and what they should expect from us and the friendship we create. “These things annoys me”. Also, we do not observe our friends to know who they are. Better still, we can ask them of their likes, dislikes among others. By telling your friend who you are and drawing a boundary for them not to cross, you begin to have a health relationship with your friends.

With this, your friends would try not to step on your toes to prevent a problem and you do same. We realize that friendship built from childhood tends to last longer than the others. This is because, we get to know them overtime and are patient with them unlike the friends we meet. we expect people we meet to know us without any prior information.

Friends from childhood know our limits, what to and what not to cross. For a smooth friendship with people, you must know yourself well enough to be able to accommodate another person.

APPRECIATE FOUNDATION AND VALUES

You must respect the goals, values and foundation of your friend. Thus, value what your friends bring on board as equal to yours. You should not think your values or goals supersedes that of your friends. NO. we all have different parents, background and upbringing. For this reason, disagreements would come but the way we handle it is what counts.

We cannot expect our friends to be exactly like us although we may meet people similar to us. Learning and appreciating what they bring on board is a great way to maintain a healthy relationship with our friends.

Be happy you got to know someone different or similar to you and appreciate their worth.

Know your language and Embrace your mistakes:

The language you use are not only the spoken ones. Your reaction to something will communicate to your friends. For this reason, know whether your verbal or non verbal way of communicating gives either a negative or positive vibe to your friend.. This help to solve issues very easily since you know what you did right or wrong.

Also saying you are sorry, thank you and accepting that your were at fault or grateful to your friend is a great way to have a good relationship.

I hope you enjoyed reading and got to know of news ways you can relate with your friend. 

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