Quality Connection < Everything Else
Relationships take work but who’s really doing the work to build quality connections?
I believe there is a gap in our culture regarding the expectations we have for others in relationships and the established social norms and dynamics we are taught about relationships. There’s also an absence of a collective conversation around the importance of our relationships with others and the quality of life we live. This blows my mind because the correlation between those two are linked and inescapable — we are social beings and that will never change.
And so, I want to tease out a small conversation and plant a few seeds with the hopes that after reading this you might be more curious about where you’re at in your relationships with friends, a partner, or potential love interest, even your colleagues.
When you’re done living it up in your 20’s and the reality of your 30’s starts to kick in how do you imagine yourself spending your time? Who are you spending it with? Are you alone? Do you have a solid friend or friends to explore and grow life with? A system of people to advise you, encourage and inspire you? Do you want to be in a romantic relationship? Do you have one? Who are you building a home and a future with? Who’s in your immediate circle of relationships?
I ask because it’s troubling when the casualness and clout of our youth culture start to fade or cause internal conflicts and you look around to realize that you’re only getting older and haven’t taken the time to evaluate and be proactive about the relationship in your lives. I also ask because while we’re being young and free, most of us we’re ignoring the wisdom and warnings from our elders and people who followed society’s prescription for a comfortable life or a super successful one, only to hold some of the deepest regrets around love lost, words unspoken, and time not spent.
We’re not taught that relationships, specifically healthy and thriving ones require the same clarity, attention, consistency, and creativity as many of our other goals. And that’s important to understand because the quality of our relationships also plays a role in our ability to be fulfilled while we pursue all of our other goals. If we want to be tapped into our creativity, buy our first home, get out of debt, show up in our communities, become a speaker and influencer, we’ve got to know how to do relationships. And it starts with the relationship with ourselves. If we don’t do the personal development work, all of our unhealed wounds, ego trips, projections, and all that other internal drama will impact your ability to live well; so do that first.
If you’re a Millennial or a Gen z, I hear your concerns — creating quality connection today is even harder than it has been in the history of our humanity. We have to sort through all the filters, overemphasized characteristics, and avatars of ourselves and others to get to the real good stuff. To have conversations beyond the surface level, to be able to focus and listen and get to know people. And people are also more closed off and jaded than ever, especially with all the other complex layers of our psyches, society, and technology. So yeah, the challenges are real. But so is the choice and opportunity to build meaningful connections and relationships. We still have that option and reality available to us. It’s just going to take intentional work.
As someone, who’s proactively learning how to do better relationships I want to leave a few quick tips and prompting questions as a takeaway. Consider it a little personal development exercise to help you do the work and start creating quality in your life, assuming you don’t have much of it already.
Tip 1 — Get clear about your vision for the relationships in your life.
What kind of experiences do you want to have with others in life? How do you imagine yourself sharing your time with them? What kind of qualities do you look for in those connections? What values are important to you in relationships?
Tip 2 -Identify your core relationships and take inventory of them.
Do you feel nourished by the people in your life? Do you nourish theirs? In what ways? How do you show up and actively engage with these relationships? Is it consistent?
Tip 3 — Phase out relationships that don’t nourish you because not everyone is good for you and vice-versa.
Is there a person or people in your life who don’t give their attention, support, time, or presence in a reciprocal way? Evaluate that. How does it make you feel? Do you want more?
Tip 4 — Give more quality time, focused attention, presences, and gifts and get more in return — it’s a life principle.
How do you show up and nourish the important relationships in your life? Identify a few small changes you can make right away. Can you send a friend an Uber eats on their birthday? Mail them a card? A book? Send them random notes with gems that have helped you during your week?
