The Impact of Bad Habits on Your Friends

There are some bad habits that even your good friends will not stick around for. For this reason, you may want to notice if you do any of these bad habits. If you do, you’ll want to apologize for it and stop doing it. You may even be able to get some of your friends to help you manage some of your bad habits.

* Gossiping – The truth is, if you gossip to one friend, the friend you’re gossiping with is going to assume you gossip about them to your other friends. What’s more, most people will not keep secrets so they’re going to tell the friend you gossiped about. This is not a good look. If you find yourself talking about others in a negative way, train yourself to start saying nice things instead until you stop talking about people when they’re not around at all.

* Not Making Time for Friends – We all get busy in our lives but if you don’t set aside time to spend with your friends, you will lose them. People move on relatively fast. Say no to more than three get-togethers and they’ll likely stop asking. Put time with friends as a priority in your calendar. You don’t have to do it every day or even every week, but enough that you still know the person.

* Not Cutting Ties When Needed – Sometimes we maintain bad friendships out of habit too. If you have anyone in your life who makes you feel bad about yourself and does not lift you up or others up, let them go.

* Not Initiating the Contact That You Crave – If you’re an introvert or simply shy, it can be hard to initiate the contacts that you need in your life. If you find yourself not spending time with friends that are important to you, and you haven’t for a long time, try initiating the contact you crave to restart those friendships.

* Not Showing Your Love for Your Friends – If you really care for your friends, make the time to show them. Send them neat articles you think they’ll like, Groupon deals you know they will want to take, and cards for their special days.

* Being Negative – The truth is, some of us are more negative by nature than others. The problem is, negativity is a huge turnoff to most of the population, and it’s not fun to be around. Even negative people don’t like being around other negative people. Try to turn thoughts into positives in your mind, or focus on the positives when you can. Stop voicing negativity unless it’s very important.

* Not Being Open and Vulnerable – Feeling love from your friends and giving love back to your friends requires that you are open and vulnerable to them. The only way to really do this is to focus on spending time with your friends more often so you can truly know each other.

* Not Being Consistent – If you decide to embark on improving your friendships, don’t start and then stop. This is especially true if you’ve been a bad friend lately. Get out your calendar and set up times that you can focus on your friends.

If you can turn this around, you’ll get better at maintaining long-term friendships. Nothing really is better than making new friends and keeping them around long term. If you have ever wondered why you can’t make good friends, check yourself to find out if you have any of these bad habits that impact friendships.