By: David Othus
Having good friends are critical to success. Thinking that you can be more successful without close friends is simply setting yourself up for a miserable existence. Humans are social creatures and we all need good friends. The question is, what is a good friend?
Good friends are the people who support you, lift you up, help you out when you are down and help you celebrate when you are up. You can talk to them about almost anything and they will understand, and help you with a different point of view. By being a good friend, a person who is uplifting and supportive, you attract good friends.
The problem is that so many of us have friends who are not so good, who do not help us out, find faults in our goals or simply have negative attitudes which rub off on us. Even if a friend doesn’t criticize you or put you down, but simply has negative attitudes about life, society and other, beware! Negative attitudes are like skunk oil. It rubs off on everything, will stink up your life and is very hard to remove!
The questions are:
- How do we identify those friends who are sabotaging our journey forward and are pulling us down.
- How do we deal with these friends in a tactful way so that we don’t create enemies and are not pulled in the wrong direction.
Identifying friends who inhibit your success:
Negative people come in many varieties. While none of us are perfect and positive all the time, we really want to look to hang around friends who are positive and uplifting most of the time. The following list is a variety of negative aspects to help you identify if and where your friends may land. Keep in mind, you may find yourself amongst many of these attributes as well. Finding yourself amongst them, will also give you targets you can work on to help improve yourself.
Closed
A closed person is one who is constantly worried or paranoid that what they say or do will be used against them. They are generally worried about who is going to judge, criticize or find things that can be used against them in the future. Because of this, these people often lead superficial lives for fear of being themselves.
Controlling
Controlling people come in two varieties: dictatorial and manipulative. In either case, they are obsessed with getting people to do what they want, particularly people who are closest to them. Keep in mind, just because someone has a strong personality doesn’t mean that they are controlling. Ask yourself, does the person allow you to be yourself? Your gut feeling should give you the answer.
Demanding
A demanding person is one who urges others to succeed at all costs. If the other person fails, the demanding person criticizes and punishes the one who has failed. Sometimes it is easy to confuse the supportive person versus the demanding. A supportive person works in a caring manner and helps the person to succeed in what he or she wants. If goals change for some reason, a supportive person may question the change, and then support the new direction. When someone doesn’t do well, the supportive person will lift the other’s spirits in compassion and help the other to rest and learn. On the other hand, the demanding person often chooses the other’s goals, is resistant to change of direction and is not particularly compassionate in how they lift the other person up; and rarely gives time for rest, unless the rest is for them.
Demeaning
A demeaning person puts others down, either directly by saying something negatively or indirectly through demeaning humor or insinuation. While they may laugh off the impact of their statement, it is one of the most destructive forces in the world. With a few comments, a demeaning person can destroy the confidence of another; which in turn destroys that person’s life potential. Napoleon Hill considered this a worse crime than murder, for all the harm he saw this cause. I recommend staying far away from people who demean others or you.
Gossip
A person who gossips is one who is constantly telling stories about others. Often these stories come from second or third hand sources, are less than reliable and generally embellished. Most often, these stories are of a negative sort and can be quite destructive to the one being gossiped about; destroying their reputation with falsehoods and embellishments. If a person is going to gossip about others, you can pretty well bet that they will gossip about you. I recommend staying far away from people who gossip.
Helpless
A person who suffers from helplessness constantly worries about their ability to deal with life’s challenges. They generally talk about their problems and rarely if ever have or listen to possible solutions. Rather than trying to find solutions or develop proper coping mechanisms to make their life better, they wallow in self-pity and look for sympathy wherever they can find it.
Judgmental
Judgmental people tend to find fault with others in how they live, what they do or simply how they are. This negative trait can run from the all too common religious intolerance to traditional racism. It also includes those who are neither racist nor religious, it covers people who suffer nearly any kind of intolerance, and put down those who disagree with them, or whom they consider inferior.
Pessimistic
Pessimistic people always look to a dark future. To a pessimist, if anything can go wrong, it will; and even good things are tinged with darkness. Often these pessimistic people create their own negative realities. By only seeing the possible bad outcome, they don’t try as hard, don’t think of alternative solutions and either fail or simply give up. In short, they very often set themselves up for failure; and live that failure. This attitude tends to rub off on those who hang around them and sour the lives of those they come in contact with. Since we want to create a happy, positive life for ourselves, minimize your time with overly pessimistic people.
Thin Skin
A thin skinned person takes insult where none was intended. They often see others as purposefully rude to them and may even interpret well-meaning and helpful comments as personal insults.
I once worked at a local gleaners that was run by several ladies who were always kind and helpful. A friend of mine would also go, but seemed to take offense at the other workers every time she went. I watched and listened a couple of times, and found that the ladies were just as kind to her as they were to everyone else; yet my friend would still ride home with me, telling me about how mistreated she had been that day. The reality was not that she had been treated poorly or rudely, I had watched and listened to make sure; but that she simply perceived them that way. In short, my friend was so thin skinned that even well intended and helpful conversation was taken as insults to her competence or character.
Sometimes it is harder to detect a negative person. If, after dealing with someone you feel any of the following, they may be negative:
- You feel you have less energy or joy after talking to the person.
- You feel overly tense or on-guard around the person.
- The person just feels wrong and makes you uncomfortable.
In these situations, there are often more subtle forms of the above traits. Analyze your feeling and then ask yourself why you feel that way.
How to deal with friends who inhibit your success:
While some people advocate dropping all friends from your life that are negative or simply don’t live up to a particular standard, I don’t feel that this is a realistic or particularly appropriate or compassionate way to deal with friends. While distancing yourself and limiting time to them may be appropriate, dumping people who have been friends, particularly longtime friends, simply lacks compassion and heart.
Stay Away
While this is not always possible, staying away from negative people is generally the easiest and most effective way to deal with the negative people in your life. If you can’t stay away, at least try to minimize the time you spend with the negative people in your life.
Detach, Analyze & Respond
This is a multi-step process to help you process and deal with negative people in a calm, detached way. If you can’t manage to stay away from a negative person, start with this method for best effect.
Detach
Smile and remain or become detached. Don’t say anything or react, but simply listen to what the person is saying. Often the negative person is looking for a reaction, and giving this reaction just helps to perpetuate the negativity; which is generally not good for anyone. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, you don’t want to get caught up in the negative emotions that they stir up in you. Whatever the other person says, don’t take anything personally.
Analyze
Analyze the negativity and the person. Look for the underlying reason that the person is so negative. Do they hate but feel trapped in their job? Do they have an unfulfilling or simply unromantic situation? Do they lack self-esteem? What is it that is the root cause of their unhappiness? Often it is easier to deal with negativity if you can understand where it is coming from. Sometimes you will find out that a great tragedy happened in their life, which requires proper counseling and medication to overcome. Some people have medical conditions like chronic depression and such, which cause them to tend towards negative attitudes and actions. As you come to understand the cause for the person’s negativity, you understand that it is not your fault. You should also reason that not only is it not your responsibility to fix this; but, in reality, you may not be the best qualified person.
Respond
There are many ways to respond, to turn the situation around or simply protect you from the negativity being sent your way. Choose the method that seems to work best for you and is most appropriate to the situation. Remember to remain positive and detached, but listening, while the person talks. In fact, remaining positive, upbeat, confident and secure is very important when dealing with negative people. It helps you from being dragged into their negativity; and helps them to pull out of it, even for a moment, just from your positive happy attitude. Unless you are a professional councilor, your end goal is not to solve their problems; but simply to shine a light on the good and give people something to be happy about.
A very good friend of mine was telling me about her day. She had woken up early to go take some tests. While she was driving to class, someone walked out in front of her and she nearly hit the person with her car. The event affected her entire day, sending her into a bad mood. After she was done telling me about her day, I asked how she did on the exam, and she said she passed. I then told her, despite her mood, that I am glad she had such a wonderful day and explained that she managed to react quickly to a person who was crossing the street without paying attention and that she did well on her test. She was stunned for a few moments, in shock that I had reached the opposite conclusion on how her day went. Then she smiled and was happy.
Turn the Negative Around
Like the story above, look for the positive aspects of what happened and highlight those in your feedback. Spin whatever the person is complaining about into a positive light. Often, there is so much good that happens that we don’t see, even in our complaining.
Change the Subject
Change the subject to something more happy and interesting to you both. As you change the subject to something that is positive and interesting to you both, you can help to change the negative attitude of the other person by having him or her focus on something positive and enjoyable. By changing the focus away from the negative thoughts, you can help the other person to become happier.
Visualization
Imagine a shield of positive energy between you and the negative person. As the person sends a barrage of negative energy your way, imagine it bouncing off and sliding way, or turning into flowers that fall at your feet. It is amazing how well this works for some people.
Summary:
Simply put, friends are a necessity and surrounding yourself with positive and uplifting friends is critical to personal success and emotional health.
But sometimes our oldest and dearest friends don’t quite fit this mold. While some people say it is best to simply eliminate these friends from your life is best, this is not always reasonable nor appropriate. Learning how to recognize your negative friends and minimizing their impact is also critical to long term success. By being a good friend, a person who is uplifting and supportive, you attract good friends. Often I have found that a positive, uplifting, can-do approach brings you the best types of friends and the truly negative types of people end up being repulsed or transformed by your positive, uplifting attitudes.
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