Your Circle is Part of Your Success: Why Female Friendships Matter More Than We Realise

I recently watched Grace Beverley on Jamie Laing's Great Company podcast, and one part of the conversation stayed with me long after the episode ended.

Grace spoke about the importance of having solid friendships and how that support system can become the foundation that allows you to pursue everything else in your life.

Your career. Your business. Your ambitions. Your relationships. Your confidence.

I couldn't agree more.

We talk constantly about the habits, strategies and mindsets required to become successful, but we don't speak enough about the people standing beside us while we're trying to build that success. 

Because ambition is important - but so is having somewhere safe to land.

 

I Always Thought I Was Missing Something

I'm not someone who grew up with a massive group of friends.

For a long time, I looked at other women with huger friendship circles and felt a sense of jealousy. They seemed to have endless birthdays, group holidays, group chats and a constant stream of people around them.

I felt like I was missing something massively.

I wondered whether there was something wrong with me because I didn't have a big group of women I had known since school.

But now, at the big old age of 28, I've realised that friendship was never supposed to be a number game.

It isn't about how many people appear in your photos.

It's about how safe you feel around people who are in them.

 

High Effort Friendships Change Everything

I am a high-effort friend.

I will show up. I will check in. I will celebrate your wins, sit with you through your losses and help you find a solution when everything feels impossible.

I would do anything and everything for the people that I love.

For years, I didn't always understand that I deserved friendships where that effort was reciprocated.

The older I've become, the more I've realised the value of finding people who care for you with the same intention you give them.

High-effort friends don't make you question where you stand.

They celebrate your success without turning it into a competition.

They remember the small things.

They allow you to be ambitious, emotional, chaotic, confident, uncertain and completely yourself.

Those friendships may be fewer, but they are deeper. 

 

Ambition Doesn't Mean Doing Everything Alone

Another theme I took from Grace's conversation was the pressure ambitious women and female founders often place on themselves. 

We are constantly told to work harder, remain disciplined, be productive and keep pushing.

When you run a business or are trying to create a different life for yourself, it can feel as though you need to prove that you're capable of handling everything.

You need to build the business, create the content, find the clients, manage the finances, maintain your relationships and somehow continue presenting a perfectly polished version of yourself. 

But ambition doesn't mean doing everything alone.

Burnout isn't evidence that you wanted it badly enough.

Struggling in silence doesn't make you stronger.

Having a support system doesn't make your achievements any less impressive. In many cases, that support system is what gives you the confidence to take the risk in the first place. 

Behind so many successful women is a circle of people who encouraged them, listened to their ideas, reminded them of their ability and helped them stand back up when something went wrong.

Your village is not separate from your success. 

It is part of it.

 

Success Should Feel Safe Too

For a long time, success was represented to women as independence.

Being able to do everything ourselves.

Needing no one.

Never appearing uncertain, emotional or overwhelmed. 

But it don't think real success is about becoming so independent that you stop allowing people to support you.

I think success is having the confidence to chase something bigger while knowing there are people who will catch you if it doesn't work out.

It is having friends who will celebrate the new clients, the promotion, the business idea or the personal breakthrough as if it happened to them.

It is having people who remind you that your value has not disappeared when a plan fails.

It is being able to walk into the next chapter of your life without feeling as though you need to face it completely alone.

Your friendships and support system are not a distraction from the life you are trying to create.

They might just be the foundation that makes creating it possible.

And while my circle might not be the biggest, I feel incredibly safe inside it.

That, to me, is success.