| Joy |
Relationships have an incredible impact on your life. Having a positive support system of family and friends brings joy, encouragement, and even health benefits, which is why it’s so important to actively create and maintain good relationships.
Assessing where you are in different elements of your life and thinking about what you want in each, including relationships, allows you to start where you are, know where you want to go, and develop an action plan to get you to there.
Below you’ll find reflection questions to evaluate your current relationships, ideas to create new connections, and book recommendations for diving deeper into specific relationship areas.
Reflecting on the Relationships in Your Life
The following questions are from the “Joy” chapter in Target Your Life: A Guide to Get You from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be to help you to reflect on your relationships. Click here for a download of the questions if you’d like to print them out and write your thoughts down.
- Who brings positivity into your life? (Think of people who lift you up and make you feel energized, heard, supported, and loved.)
- Who brings negativity into your life? (Think of times you’ve felt drained, agitated, disrespected, or taken advantage of after being around certain people.)
- Which relationships do you want to nurture? (Think of those you listed in your first answer and that raise the bar and inspire you.)
- Which relationships have some things that need to be addressed? How can you address those issues? (Not all relationships need to end because of negative aspects. Sometimes conversations or even therapy can address problems and relationships can be saved.)
- Which relationships need to end? Do you need help ending any relationships? Where can you get help and support? (Don’t waste years of your life in a relationship that’s negatively impacting you and you know deep down cannot be fixed.)
- Would you like to foster new relationships? What are some ways you might do that? (Think about activities you would enjoy, your goals and core values, and how you might meet people that will support you in the life you want to create.)
- How can you love and show those in your life you appreciate them? (It’s important to let friends and family know how much they mean to you and lift them up. Think about how you’d like others to treat you and how you can do the same for them.)
Creating Connections
If you are looking to foster connections and not sure where to start, the following is a list of ideas to meet new people.
- Take a class that interests you, such as cooking or painting.
- Join a group like a book club.
- Sign up for an exercise class or a sports team you would enjoy participating in.
- Volunteer for something that matters to you.
- Enroll in a continuing education class on a subject that’s always peaked your curiosity.
- Try a travel group out.
- Simply get outside and walk around the area you live in.
Book Recommendations
If you’d like to explore ideas to nurture or improve specific relationships in your life, below are a few book recommendations.
- The Fine Art of Small Talk: How to Start a Conversation, Keep It Going, Build Networking Skills – and Leave a Positive Impression! by Debra Fine is a great guide to building connections in a variety of social situations.
- For romantic relationships, Becoming the One: Heal Your Past, Transform Your Relationship Patterns, and Come Home to Yourself by Sheleana Aiyana takes you on an inward journey to transform unhealthy relationship patterns into healthy ones.
- If you have children in your life, The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children by Dr. Shefali Tsabary teaches how to create mindful and respectful connections with them.
- Two books by Bronnie Ware, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing and Your Year for Change: 52 Reflections for Regret-Free Living, are both great to reflect on the relationship you have with your own self, helping to make sure you are living a life that’s true to yourself.