The Top 10 Questions for Anyone Wanting To Increase
Their Circle of Friends
1. How many relationships can you fully nurture in your life?
The closest friendships seem to last forever with no need of nurture.
Years
elapse & on reunion they drop away instantaneously. Other friendships
must
be fed & watered. For many of us the number of relationships
we can sustain
is finite, this is the concept of the Circle of Ten.
What is the number of
friends which you can sustain? See also #2.
2. How much time are you able to invest in a new friendship?
If you are able to nurture more relationships in your life, how
much time
do you have to invest? If time is short, is the goal
sufficiently important
to merit dropping some other activity or responsibility?
3. Are you really seeking a friend or rather another acquaintance
or someone
whose prime role is to support you & can you tell the difference?
Friendship is a partnership & not something superficial; are
you ready to be
an equal partner in terms of giving & receiving?
4. Do you have acquaintances who following an investment of time
might
become true friends?
Finding & making friends of people currrently unknown can be
a
time-consuming process ( but see #9 &10). Can you abbreviate
it by learning
more about people you already know?
5. What personal characteristics have drawn you to your friends in the past?
What characteristics do you seek, which would you expressly avoid?
6. Occasionally I meet a kindred spirit and there's an instant
meeting of
the hearts and minds. More often, friendship builds
more slowly. In either
case the first stage is meeting someone and recogising
something in the way
they smile, speak or act which sparks your interest.
7. In my experience those initial meetings develop into true & lasting
friendships through pursuing shared goals or sharing
stressful experiences.
What are the meaningful interests you would like to share with
a friend
while building that relationship?
8. Do you find it easier to make friends with the same or oppposite
gender?
What issues does this raise with your partner and how will you
address
them?
9. Time today is short: if you are uncomfortable directly addressing
with a
prospective new friend the possibility of developing
a true friendship, is
this an area for you to stretch your risk-taking
muscle & with this
particular person may that approach backfire?
10, Time today is short: if you judge the use of words to accelerate
development of a friendship unwise, what are the
unspoken rituals signifying
movement of a relationship to a higher level?
About the submitter:
This piece was written by Martin Sawdon who can be reached at martin@coachingworks.ca or
visited on the web at CoachingWorks.ca.
Martin has a special interest in people in the workplace and the creation of
Sustainable Workplaces, corporations which are extraordinarily profitable,
extraordinarily effective if public sector but get there by growing people
rather than consuming them like a fossil fuel. He coaches clients with integrity
and great senses of humor, who are determined to realize achievements beyond
their wildest dreams.
Coaching-Works! has been featured on radio and television.
