7 Signs You Need New Friends

The quality of our lives is directly related to the quality of our relationships. The better our relationships, the better our lives will be.

If our relationships are mentally and emotionally exhausting, we won’t be at our best consistently. Some people can mask what’s really going on in their personal or professional relationships, but it often comes at a cost, which may include:

• Experiencing high levels of stress, worry, and anxiety.
• Feeling physically tired often.
• Not being able to sleep well at night.
• Displaying behavior that is uncharacteristic.
• Not being willing to take new risks.

The people we have in our lives affect us in many ways, therefore it’s important we take steps to make sure we are spending time with the right people.

Many years ago, when I started my personal development journey, I started meeting people very different from who I was at that time. The way they spoke, the things they were interested in and the people they spent time with were different to who I was spending time with.

At the time I was still in my twenties and my interest was mainly in sports and improving my career prospects. As I started learning more about myself, my interest in many sports started to fade and I also discovered the career I had chosen at that time was not the right one for me.

Over the next few years, the people I previously spent time with slowly started falling away to the point where they were no longer a part of my life. It’s not that they were bad people or were a bad influence on me, it’s that I started spending more time with my peers, who were on a similar personal development journey.

By making the decision to invest in my personal development, I have been able to form connections with new people locally and overseas, which has helped me reach more people with my work.

7 Signs You Need New People or Friends in Life

1. You can’t be yourself. Whenever we’re not being ourselves or acting just so we can impress others, it’s a sign we need to check in with ourselves as to why that may be the case. It’s also a sign we don’t feel we can be our true selves around the people we are spending time with so it may be time to find new people to hang out with.

2. You have different values or goals in life. We tend to be attracted to people who are just like us, which means they may have similar ambitions and aspirations in life. Whenever we’re around people who have different motivators in life, it’s hard to find commonality and conversations with them tend to be surface-level conversations.

3. You keep getting drawn into other people’s dramas. If we’re around people who like to gossip, whine, blame and complain, that can be emotionally draining and demotivating. We’re better off limiting our time with them and spending more time with people who are more uplifting and optimistic.

4. You find yourself hesitating or making up excuses not to be around them. Our instincts are usually accurate in the sense that our initial reaction to something is often feedback as to what we really think and feel about it. If we are hesitant to spend time with certain people, then that’s a clue that we don’t feel inspired when we’re around them.

5. You don’t feel supported by certain people. While the truth is we’re responsible for our lives, as humans, we want to feel supported. This may be by being able to share something with others or being able to ask for help if needed. If we don’t feel supported by the people we spend time with, then it’s time to find a more supportive network or group of friends.

6. You know you can’t rely on them. This could be because they are not dependable or they do not keep their word. Having people we can count on is really important because we all go through highs and lows, and sometimes we just need to know that there are people in our lives who will be there for us no matter what.

7. You are not important to them. If people our lives are always too busy for us, that doesn’t make them bad people. It simply means they have other priorities in their lives and we should adjust accordingly. It’s even worse if they get upset when we don’t do what they want to do. The message is clear — we need to bring in new people into our lives.

Whenever we’re around people, how we feel during and after we’ve been with them is an important factor to consider when deciding who to spend time with. We’re better off spending time with people who will inspire us to grow and be the best we can be.

Action Step: Evaluate the people you have spent time with over the past three months. Determine if they’ve had a positive or negative effect on how you feel or what you do. Based on that evaluation, limit the time you spend with people who drain you of energy and spend more time with those who encourage and empower you.