Guest Blogger Jane Lovas' weekly series called “What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Life and Career” runs each Thursday

Two weeks ago I wrote about your relationship with yourself and last week I wrote about your relationship with your success team. Now it’s time to write about your personal relationships. This week I’m going to share some tips with you that will help you have great personal relationships.

1. Know yourself: You can’t expect someone else to know you if you don’t know yourself. Spend some time getting clear about who you are and what you enjoy doing.

2. Schedule time: Every relationship takes some work and you can’t do that without spending time together. Schedule time together and don’t cancel unless there is an overriding reason.

3. Honest Communication: Talk about what is going on inside of you, not just what’s going on with you. Also don’t let that elephant in the room get too big. You’ll be surprised how much smaller it becomes when it’s addressed. For the person not speaking: listen with both ears and your heart (thinking about what you’re going to say next is not listening, neither is texting or checking email).

4. Celebrate: Celebrate events such as birthdays, and accomplishments such a goal achieved. Sharing events and accomplishments also creates common bonds that help keep relationships together.

5. Be a friend: If you’re someplace new and you haven’t begun to make friends yet, be a friend to someone that looks like they might also be lonely. Start off with something easy such as coffee or lunch. Ask them some questions to get them talking about themselves.

No one should ever be lonely unless they choose to be lonely. If you are lonely – reach out and support someone else. I can assure you that if you are reaching out to others; there will be others that will reach out to you.

Have a great day!

"- Good Friends" courtesy Juliana Coutinho via Flickr Creative Commons

Jane Lovas is a career specialist who is the creator of the life changing 12 week tele-seminar “Creating the Life of Your Dreams”. She is also our guest blogger, whose column will run every Thursday. If you would like to contact Jane, you can reach her here, here or here.

Guest Blogger Jane Lovas' weekly series called “What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Life and Career” runs each Thursday

As I continue blogging about relationships I want to share with you the importance of having a small group of friend that will have your back. This isn’t just any group of friends, this is a group of select friends that will support you when you want to try something new while at the same be perfectly honest with you if you’re making some dumb decisions or not living up to your potential.

These are relationships that you want to think very carefully about. Are you ready for them and are they ready for you? First are you ready to hear the truth about yourself from someone else’s perspective? If you want to expand your horizons and become the very best that you can, this group can help you get there.

There are three very important components to creating this group; safety, honesty and acceptance. Safety means that everyone in the group feels safe; nothing is said with the intention to hurt anyone. Honesty means that the truth is always said. And finally acceptance means everything that is said is accepted in the spirit with which it is shared.

The intention of this group is to support growth and development. It may be your growth and development or the group may support each other’s growth and development also. If the group’s main purpose is to support your personal development you may end up meeting with each person individually, whereas if the group supports each other you’ll want regular group meetings.

No matter how you think you might structure your support group, start slowly by building a safe environment that allows honesty and acceptance to grow. You need to feel safe so that you can ask anyone in the group for their advice, thoughts or ideas and know that you will get an honest answer delivered with respect (even if it seems a bit harsh).

So whom should you ask to be in your group? Start slowly, start with one individual, someone you know and respect and trust their opinion. Ask them if you can buy them dinner or coffee. It’s best to start in a neutral place. Allow plenty of time; give them an idea about what you are trying to do and what support you would like from them. What’s important about this first meeting is that it is the opportunity to get to know one another better and begin building a safe relationship filled with trust.

Good luck and start building your success team!

"True Friends" courtesy Lel4nd via Flickr Creative Commons

Jane Lovas is a career specialist who is the creator of the life changing 12 week tele-seminar “Creating the Life of Your Dreams”. She is also our guest blogger, whose column will run every Thursday. If you would like to contact Jane, you can reach her here, here or here.