Show me your friends, I'll show you your future
Choose your circle wisely
You know when you’re having a rough day, week, or even month? You’ve tried everything to get out of the funk — going for a walk or drive, getting in a good workout, journaling, or whatever else usually works, and this time it’s just not working. Then you realize, you feel kind of lonely. Whether that’s because you’ve isolated yourself and haven’t connected with your circle in a while, or because you’re in the wrong room surrounding yourself with the wrong people. You feel drained, empty, and pretty much hopeless.
Suddenly, as soon as you connect with just one person who brings you joy, inspires you, makes you laugh, or just knows you, it’s like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. It’s not news that the power of human connection is real and impacts our wellbeing on a deeper level. Yet, we don’t acknowledge or act on this enough. We isolate ourselves, stay in circles that keep us small, and remain in friendships or relationships that make us feel stressed and stagnant.
Making and maintaining friendships as an adult is hard. But it’s your responsibility to prioritize these connections and put in the work to fuel your own growth. You owe it to yourself to surround yourself with people who lift you up, support you, and make you feel good. The people around you today are shaping your future.
As part of this month’s theme of health and wellness, I’m unpacking why making and maintaining friendships as an adult is so hard, how to conduct a circle audit, how to curate and expand your connections with intention, and how much it all really does impact your success trajectory. Remember to listen to the full episode on this week’s episode of The AHA! Moment Podcast!
Why is making and maintaining friendships as an adult so hard?
Let’s face it — there typically are very few people in your life who stay in it forever. The few and far in between are those friends who evolve with us through decades in time, and of course we value those friendships greatly due to them being so rare. But the rest of our relationships come and go to teach us something about ourselves or simply just have an expiration date. Not everything is meant to last forever, and that’s ok. But part of the bigger issue of why friendships are so difficult is because we keep forcing the wrong ones to stay.
If you’re the one putting in all the effort, if you find yourself bored, if you solely feel like their therapist, if you’re being taken advantage of, if you’re being lied to, and tolerate it all but feel guilty if you walk away, you’re not allowing space for more aligned connections to come into your orbit. You stay stuck and miserable. You’ve created a huge block in front of you that won’t let you take the next step forward. You have no space for new and aligned connections to enter your world.
The other hurdle in adult friendships is we don’t take into account the fact that sometimes, it’s really not that deep. Sometimes people just change and go down another path. Their priorities change and so do their values. That doesn’t make them a bad person. But it doesn’t mean you have to get dragged along for the ride either, and vice versa. It means it has nothing to do with you, so don’t take it personally. But move on.
How to conduct a circle audit
Sometimes it’s tough to recognize when a friendship doesn’t feel right anymore. But over time, they can be quietly sabotaging your growth. There are three misaligned dynamics that you may detect within your circle that you may want to evaluate: when the friendship feels like *only* your job to maintain, when you feel uninspired or drained after an interaction, and when you simply have nothing in common anymore.
Firstly, friendships are a job to maintain. But it shouldn’t be a painful job. It should be a mutual exchange of effort and reciprocity. You shouldn’t always be the one to reach out to check in or make plans. It’s a two way street, period.
Second, when you feel exhausted after talking to them or seeing them, that’s not normal. That’s a sign from your nervous system that they’re draining your energy. That means you have less energy to pour into what really matters for you. Therefore, they’re not filling up your cup as they should be, but they’re draining it. It slows you down a lot more than you realize as you try to shift gears and go on with the rest of your priorities and obligations.
Finally, when you just don’t have much in common anymore, whether that’s regarding your lifestyle choices, behaviors and habits, other connections and external influences they have, that’s also an indication that maybe the friendship has run its course. You don’t have to be identical to all your friends, but you also should share some loose commonalities that keep you going in a similar general direction. What connects you to this person? If the only thing keeping the friendship hanging on by a thread is from the past that is no longer in the present, it could be time to re-evaluate it.
How to curate and expand your connections with intention
Once you’ve cleared the space for more aligned friendships, it’s time to get out there and start meeting some new people. This can seem daunting, but it doesn’t need to be. Start here: visit places you already find yourself going to every week and talk to one new person each time. It could be the coffee shop, the gym, your office, any events you like going to in your community. When you do this, a commonality has already been established — you’re in the same vicinity. Strike up conversation, compliment them, ask open ended questions, lighten up with some humor sprinkled on top. Who cares? Humans are craving in-person interaction now more than ever, and everyone’s in the same boat when it comes to the struggle of making friends as an adult. You have nothing to lose.
When you do this and you click with a new friend, you’ll feel when the connection feels expansive for you. You’ll feel lighter, like you can see more clearly, and you’re going to learn a lot from them (and they’re going to learn a lot from you too!). Fresh dynamics and perspectives are so important to strike up momentum and bring you to the next level. You’re not going to feel stressed or bored or stagnant anymore. You’ll feel motivated and energized. Above all, you’re going to have a clearer sense of self, because your circle is now reflecting back on you what your future self is craving.
How much does this really impact your success trajectory?
I can say this from personal and professional experience, your circle impacts your success trajectory almost instantly. The second you jump off the cliff, step through the fear, and choose yourself when it comes to who you surround yourself with, the fulfillment and opportunities that come alongside it are waiting for you right on the other side. It happens every single time.
Your conversations shift. You gain more confidence as you expose yourself to more possibilities over setbacks. You feel more challenged, healthy discomfort, and inspired, long after the conversation or meetup ends for that day.
The choices you make when it comes to who you surround yourself with is correlated directly with your identity. You are a product of your environment, and you have the choice of what that environment is. It’s your way of showing up as who you’re becoming versus what you’ve outgrown and are no longer available for.
You are in the driver’s seat of your future. Stop settling for the familiarity trap and get out there. You never know, that connection might just get you the dream job you’ve always wanted, the opportunity that changes everything, or just the friendship that finally feels like home.
Show me your friends, I’ll show you your future — choose wisely.
Cheers,
Angelina