Relationships in your life are a very personal thing. You have the right to have standards for the people you allow in your life – whether it’s a family member, friend or partner/ relationship prospect.
It’s important to ask yourself what’s important to you.
Have you ever gotten to a point where you’ve thought to yourself, how on earth did I get involved with this person?
It’s probably because you never set any standards, and if you did – you never communicated them to that person, and whenever you’ve had issues, you more than likely never addressed them.
Regardless of what situation you may have found yourself in – the first thing is to accept responsibility that you’re in it because of you. I know this is going to offend some people – so I’m not talking about situations where someone has wronged you out of the blue etc – this is about acknowledging and accepting the fact that you allowed a person into your life to do what they did.
What is important to each person is going to vary, so the only thing you can do is figure out what is important to you.
The only thing in this life that we live for are the relationships we have with others.
Relationships = how we relate to others.
In an ideal world, many people would have a certain set of standards or expectations before proceeding into a relationship with their partner, and we often forget to do that for friendships.
Many people let people in (in and out, more frankly) of their lives without giving it much thought.
Now, in order to attract good people into your life, you need to make sure that you are a good person yourself. Do not be expect something from someone when you’re unable to offer the same thing.
Evaluate the expectations you have for others.
Evaluate the expectations you have for YOURSELF.
You should never have high expectations of others if you have low expectations of yourself.
If you have low expectations of others but high expectations for yourself, then you’ll always be disappointed and people will always let you down. You are also doing yourself the disservice of having people in your life who would be able to add a whole another dimension to you.
I’m big on self-reflection. The first thing is to be honest with yourself – Am I a friend? Is it a privilege to be my friend?
I’ve done this over and over again throughout my life and self-development journey.
Whatever you value in a relationship should be what you’re evaluating yourself on. Be completely honest with yourself too – even if you find you haven’t been stepping up. The whole point of self-reflecting is then identifying what changes need to be made.
The next thing to ask yourself is: Who in the company I keep has abused this beyond repair?
Beyond repair is also going to be completely subjective – not every situation is going affect each of us the same.
Since critically analysing myself and the people in my life, my friendships have changed immensely.
Over the past 4 years (especially the last 2 years) – I’ve basically used the approach I’ve described above, and I have the most true, strong, authentic friendships in my life. The quantity has decreased a huge amount but the quality of my few friendships are rare and I’m truly grateful for that.
My advice is: Date your friends. Not in the Kehlani and Teyana Taylor ‘Morning’ videoclip way – but date your friends the way you would date a potential partner.
Now of course this isn’t going to be the exact same experience – at the end of the day, none of my friends are going to father my children so there are still certain things you can overlook – as long as those traits of your friends aren’t impacting you negatively.
Being self-reflective is important even when it’s not a personal situation. Asking yourself questions like if you’re a completely independent person, or do you have a personality like me where you may be influenced by those you surround yourself with?
Because if you are easily influenced or swayed by subconsciously adopting certain characteristics from other people, then you may want to consider being a bit more cautious as to who’s in your environment that may affect your behaviour.
Do not let yourself live life passively.
You get to choose who you want in your life and how you want your life to look like.
Choose wisely and surround yourself with genuine people who want you to be better.
Inner Truth Gym 