The Importance of Having Friendship Standards

Now listen — I LOVE people! I love all kinds of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, cultures, upbringings, experiences, educational levels, etc. I love mingling, meeting new people, connecting people with other people, and finding those people that I can connect with wherever I go.

My life has been tremendously impacted by people who I have nothing in common with and I love and admire them deeply.

But those people that I spend the most time with are going to meet specific criteria because I believe that we become like who we spend the most time with. My closest friends are people I want to be like. We each need to determine for ourselves what we value as individuals and what we want our lives to look like. We then pick our closest friends accordingly.

Below are a few of the qualities I value in my closest friends or those individuals I’m working on building closer relationships with. Decide what qualities you value and actively seek friendships with people that align with those values.

• They are trustworthy. I can share my life with them without them sharing my life with others. They practice discretion and are not gossips. We can go to each other with life struggles and know our stories are safe with one another.
• They are going to protect me and remind me of who I am, what I stand for, and what I value in life, even if they value different things. They are going to fight for the best version of me and help me live without regrets. They know I will do the same for them.
• They are humble and seek restoration when something seems ‘off’ in our relationship. They are open to having honest and gracious conversations to fight for the relationship.
• They are students of life and seek solutions for their faith, health, careers, and relationships. They practice extreme ownership and are not victims of their situations. This also means that they give me space to grieve when needed but are then going to encourage me to learn, grow, seek answers, and solutions for my situation.
• They are freaking hilarious and fun to be around because, well, life is dang hard and we need people to laugh and experience life with.

It’s extremely important to keep in mind that if we want friends with certain attributes, we are working on those same attributes within ourselves. It’s unfair to expect something from someone else that we aren’t willing to provide for them.