Building Your Tribe: Five Things to Look for in Your Friends

On your journey to success, having a great group of friends can help you reach your dreams by pushing you to succeed even when you feel like giving up. However, if you want to turn your dreams into realities, you’ll need to have the right friends. You don’t need to have the coolest, trendiest friends, but you should have a tribe of people that you can rely upon. Your group of friends should be able and willing to help motivate you when you need a little help. When you’re building your tribe, make sure they have these qualities.

Supportive

A good friend should support you and your goals. This might mean that your friend has to respect your boundaries when you have to miss a party in order to study. A good friend will understand that your goals are important to you, so they’ll make an effort to support you in reaching your goals. However, being a good friend doesn’t mean supporting you in whatever whims you have. If you want to engage in reckless or dangerous behavior, a good friend would not support that. A good friend supports you in becoming the best version of yourself while gently nudging you toward the path to success.

Ambitious

If your friends have hopes and dreams of their own, that’s a big sign that you’ve found a good group of friends. Having friends who aspire to be something better than they are today is important because they can help inspire you when you’re feeling stuck. Also, when your friends have hopes and dreams of their own, they’re often better able to understand when you have to make sacrifices for your dreams to come true. Furthermore, if your friends have their own goals, they’re more likely to push you forward instead of holding you back.

Mostly Drama Free

Asking for 100% drama free friends may be asking for a little too much. After all, at a certain point in life, everyone has some baggage. But if your friend is always stirring up problems, or if problems just magically seem to find them, that’s a big red flag. Everyone will have issues at some point in their lives. And, during those times, having a loving and supportive friend to lean on is invaluable. However, you shouldn’t be dealing with your friend’s drama all the time. Also, your friend should be able to respect your boundaries, even when they’re emotionally distressed. You shouldn’t be expected to answer the phone at 3:00 am, or drop everything whenever your friend is in need.

Building You Up 

Not only should your friends support you, a good friend should also build you up. Relationships aren’t competitions. But, unfortunately, some people missed the memo on that one. Good friends shouldn’t look for opportunities to put you down or humiliate you. If you aren’t sure if your friend builds you up, pay attention to how you feel after you hang out with them. Do you feel worse about yourself? If so, that’s a pretty good indication that they aren’t building you up. 

Integrity

If you want to be successful, you need to surround yourself with people who have impeccable integrity. Your friends should be able to do the right thing even when they know they can get away with doing the wrong thing. It’s difficult to find people who have a solid moral compass but these are the people you want to be spending your time with. Not only are these people good influences, they’re also more likely to steer you in the right direction when you’re struggling to do the right thing.

Join Our Tribe Today

When you’ve got big dreams, it’s important that you’ve got the right group of people supporting you. At Jillcoil.com, we’re building a tribe of empowered women who are actively pursuing their dreams. If you’re looking for an empowering tribe, we’re here for you.