Adulting is hard work! Personally, I find it a constant challenge to balance all the commitments in life: a full-time job, exercise, self-care, quality time with family and catching up with friends. Often, seeing friends becomes one of those things I keep putting off on my to-do list, even though it’s such an important part of a happy and well-rounded life.
Human beings are social animals, which means we thrive and survive when we have supportive friends in our life. I’m sure we can all relate to feelings of loneliness and dissatisfaction when we are isolated from our friends. I strongly believe that developing and maintaining strong friendships is a skill that can be learnt (see my article here on how to improve your relationships) and hopefully the following tips can help too!
Schedule and time-manage your friendships
My most valuable tool for maintaining my friendships is my phone calendar. By scheduling an event, then it becomes something real and tangible that I can look forward to. It’s also a commitment that I’m more likely to keep.
With everything organised through my calendar I can check the month ahead and see what Friday nights I’ve set aside for drinks or Sundays I’ve booked for brunch. If you need a brush-up on time management, then click here. These events become an exciting thing to count down to, rather than to stressfully squeeze in at the last moment.
Reply straight away to messages
Have you ever received a message in a distracted moment and then completely forgotten to reply? I think we all have these forgetful moments. While being slow to reply to messages doesn’t make you a bad person or friend, it can have an impact on your relationships and lead to miscommunications.
My rule of thumb is to reply straight away if the message is a general hello or check-in. If the message requires some thought then I give myself some more time, but still try to reply within a day. It can be as simple as setting aside five minutes before bed or in your lunch break!
Let go of the small stuff- focus on the bigger picture
The reality of being adults is that we have a lot going on in life. Keeping up with friends who stress over small issues, become easily offended or are high-maintenance can become very exhausting in my already busy life!
I much prefer people who focus on the bigger picture and don’t get caught up in petty issues. Our conversations are more productive and positive and less time is spent trying to smooth over misunderstandings and walking on egg-shells.
Make them feel valuable
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received about friendship is from my mum, who told me: to have a good friend, you need to be a good friend.
To have a good friend, you need to be a good friend.
One of the ways we can nurture our friendships is by making our friends feel valuable. We can do this by investing time, communicating openly, cooking them a meal if they are going through a tough time, remembering their birthdays and surprising them with a gift or gesture now and then.
By making your friends feel special, your relationships will grow, and although this shouldn’t be the primary motivation, hopefully they will make you feel special too!
Manage your expectations
Finally, I think it’s important to manage your expectations of friends. In an ideal world our friends would never disappoint us, cancel last minute, forget our birthdays or annoy us- but we live in the real world, and real relationships are not that simple!
So, if you find yourself constantly upset with your friends, it might be helpful to reflect whether you are expecting too much from the relationship.
By lowering your expectations of others, your relationship satisfaction will increase. And now and then, you might be pleasantly surprised when you come across a particularly thoughtful and special friend.
I hope these tips help you to maintain your adult friendships and that you enjoy many future happy moments and experiences with your friends!
