Reconnecting for Personal Fulfillment
Last month I wrote a post on the value of Quality-based networking as a way to further your career.
This post follows the same sort of idea, but looking more at personal relationships. In 2016, as well as working on meeting new people and expanding my personal network, I have put a lot of time into rekindling old relationships that had fallen by the wayside over the previous years.
These relationships dissipated for many reasons, not all of which were deliberate or necessarily the fault of one party, but nevertheless I was out of touch with some very good friends. A large factor in this is often when someone gets into a relationship, and as their priorities shift and they spend more time with their significant other, the other relationships in their lives take a back seat (I myself was guilty of this, and learnt some important lessons from it).
Earlier this month I was listening to the Radio 2 Breakfast show with Chris Evans and one of his guests came on to talk about an easy way to get more fulfillment in your life — his answer… rekindling old friendships and relationships. He cited a few examples of how he had reached out to old friends that he used to play sports with and how through their conversations, they could add value to one-another’s lives again almost instantly. One of his friends was a tennis coach, who volunteered to teach his daughter to play tennis and in return he set his friend up on a date with a woman who he knew from work.
This is just an illustration of the sorts of value that can be obtained from reconnecting with old friends.
As I mentioned, I have worked hard this year to reach out to some very good friends from school/university/work that I had lost touch with — since then I have ensured to keep in regular contact with these people, and I have found significant enjoyment in the times we have spent catching up and not only talking about some of our great memories, but also some of our ambitions for the years ahead. It doesn’t take long to remember why you were friends for so long.
2016 has been a fantastic year for me personally, and I will be writing a post in the coming weeks to reflect on that. A major factor in this success has been the relationships that I have built (and rebuilt) over the past 12 months.
As you forge ahead into 2017, think of some of the relationships that you may have let slip through the cracks.. reach out to that person (or people) and just talk with them. I assure you it will be rewarding.
