Does this sound familiar?
“I can’t seem to find that perfect, close friendship. A friend that I can really be myself with, have deep conversations with, not worry about saying something stupid around them, or feel like I’m burdening them.”
Here’s the thing. If this sounds like you, you might be looking at deep friendships all wrong.
You don’t “find” that perfect friend. You “grow” the perfect friendship with the people around you.
It’s like wealth. You don’t happen upon it – you grow it through time, effort, good investments, and careful maintenance.
In the next few emails, I’m going to share some of my top tips for deepening your friendships.
Before we get to those, start doing two key things right away:
First, start thinking of your friendships as a dial, not a switch. A switch just turns “on” and “off”. “Friend” or “Not Friend”.
A dial can be adjusted higher and lower. Like the heat setting on your stove. Low, Medium-Low, Medium, Medium-High, High.
Acquaintance. Casual friend. Friend. Close friend. Best friend.
With the tips I’m going to share with you, you’ll be able to crank up the dial on any friendship.
Second, right now, stop ruling people out as potential close friends:
- “She has a million friends, she probably doesn’t have time for me”.
- “He’s a work friend, he probably doesn’t want to hang out outside of work.”
- “She’s so busy – I don’t want to burden her.”
- “He probably wants to go sit with his other friends and I’m taking up his time.”
When you cave to thoughts like these, you decide that people can’t become good friends. This leads to a slew of other mistakes that prevent you from deepening your friendships.
