Toxic Friends: When to Make Your Circle of Friends Smaller

Whether you realize it or not, your friendships affect your level of success. The people you spend your focus and energy on influence not only who you are, but how you view yourself and also who you become. If some of the people in your circle of friends bring you down, take some time to evaluate your relationships, step back from toxic friendships, and make your circle a little tighter. Life is too short for toxic friendships!

Fat Free Friends

I often refer to good friends – people that lift you up, inspire you, and push you to be more – as “Fat Free Friends.” Now hold on a sec…this term has nothing to do with how much they weigh and everything to do with how they make you feel.

For instance, think about a fatty substance: it’s gooey and unattractive; it sticks to you, weighs you down, and makes you slow, lethargic, and unhappy. I bet just about everyone can think of a person in their life that makes them feel this way. A good friend does the opposite of these things; a good friend is essentially fat free!

Detaching Yourself from Self-Esteem Suckers

When you have big goals, dreams, and plans for your life, toxic relationships can deter your success. While you can’t choose your family, you CAN choose your friends and make decisions about who you will spend your time and energy on. If you want to stay motivated to reach your goals and stick to better habits, take a moment to think about the people with whom you spend time. Will they support you, or throw you off track? If the following descriptions sound all too familiar, consider making your circle of friends smaller.

• A charity case.
• A toxic friend that puts you and others down.
• Someone you feel you must impress, yet no matter what you do, you never receive their approval.
• When good things happen to you, you get a strange feeling that this person is not genuinely happy for you. However, this person always seems to be around when things aren’t going so well for you.
• A person that will probably never get their…uh…”stuff” together.
• Someone that constantly tries to “fix” others to distract his or herself from their own problems.
• A gossiper… If they’re talking about other people behind their back, they are probably talking about you behind your back, too.

These kinds of people often hold us back from moving forward in our lives and becoming the person we want to be. They are comfortable where they are, and they want you to stay there with them. Listen to this podcast on when to let a friendship go.

However, if you want to move up, you have to play up. You must surround yourself with people that are on their game, people that make you feel slightly uncomfortable being complacent…people that push you to be more.

Disclaimer

Now, before you go making a public announcement on Facebook that you are no longer friends with someone, keep reading… You don’t have to proclaim to this person that you are no longer friends. Simply make a decision to spend less and less time with the person. Get busy. You will slowly drift apart, and there will be no need for a big fallout.

One last thing: before you decide to end a friendship, ask yourself if you’re doing the right thing. If the person doesn’t consistently fit the description above, yet he or she made a perceived mistake in one way or another, talk it out first. Is a simple misunderstanding worth throwing away years of built up trust and loyalty? Before writing off a person for something that may be nothing more than a simple misunderstanding, try to see both sides of the situation.

Your Top 5

Overall, your top 5 favorite people should consist of people that bring positive energy to your life. The people in your tight group of friends should be people that share your positive nature. Keeping close people that share your ambition to live a fuller life and be the best version of yourself can only fast track your success.