Create a better relationship with yourself before connecting with others

Be comfortable in your skin
When you’re in a group, you often do what you think the crowd wants you to do. But instead of sacrificing your unique self just to fit in with friends, speak your truth and live your life authentically. Love and be true to yourself before you think about belonging to a group. If a group doesn’t allow you the freedom to express yourself authentically, then consider finding new friends.

Practice emotional fitness to learn how to be more open and loving
The best tools for emotional fitness include daily meditation, yoga, journaling, and talking to a therapist. These tools help you be present and actively listen to yourself and others. Once a week, you can perform a relationship retrospective with a partner, friend, or colleague using these 3 prompts: “I appreciated it when you…”, “I felt frustrated when …” and “One way we can support each other next week is…” These prompts can open up your relationship and help you understand one another better.

Create meaningful conversations based on curiosity and reciprocity
When you’re at a networking event, strike up conversations with strangers by being curious about who they are rather than what you can gain from the interaction. Show them that you’re present and enthusiastic to be talking to them. Pay attention to their story and unique experiences instead of focusing on how they can benefit your career.

Create space in your friendship to come as you are
When meeting up with a friend, be authentic and avoid hiding any personal issues you may be struggling with. For example, if you’re unhappy, don’t pretend that everything is OK. Lean on each other for support even as you hold each other accountable. Create a space of mutual trust and safety where you can share each other’s successes and failures without envy or judgment.

Check your friend’s emotional bandwidth before unloading on them
Before you start talking to your friend about an emotional or important subject, ask them where their emotional bandwidth is on a scale of 1 – 10. On the scale, 1 means they are too emotionally depleted to handle your issues while 10 means they are open and ready to talk about anything.

Create a safe space at work to connect with your colleagues
Find one or two people at work who you trust and then agree to meet at a safe, secret place to talk about any issues that may be burdening any of you. It may be a conference room, a stairwell, a nearby coffee shop, or even via a group chat. Use this as an opportunity to vent about personal or office issues so that you can offer support to each other.