Relationship Goals
The best part about my 2020 year was my relationships.
The hardest part of my 2020 year was my relationships.
But how can it be?
My relationships were in major growth mode, navigating areas they’ve never been before. They grew because they were challenged and they grew because they were thriving. I hurt some people and I got hurt. I had some hard conversations and I avoided some. I confronted and was confronted. I lost some friends and I grew closer to some. In the midst of the hurt and the pain that relationships contribute to, I still believe they’re worth it. They are still one of my favorite parts of being alive.
There are places you can go in community that you cannot go to alone. We were meant to be connected to others — to be encouraged, to be inspired, and to be challenged. We were made for true friendship. We were meant to walk alongside others and call out what they are doing well, as we hear them call back the gold within us. We were designed to play, laugh, and be deeply known by the people around us, as they encourage us to chase our dreams and empower us to take leaps we wouldn’t dare take if they weren’t checking in. We were meant to hold each other in deep suffering, throw parties to celebrate one another’s successes, and when we are tired, they are excited to hold up our arms for us.
Here’s the thing though — who taught you how to do friendship?
Maybe your parents did an excellent job of demonstrating intimacy and connection with their friends and you picked this up. But maybe no one ever showed you the importance of friendship or taught you how to be intentional with people you wanted to build connection with.
It feels really easy to cut ourselves slack for the professional skills we didn’t develop because we didn’t go to school for them, but why are we so hard on ourselves when it comes to showing up in relationships. Odds are we weren’t taught how to always show up. It’s okay to need help learning how to be a friend, a boyfriend, a parent, or whatever role you play. Relationships are for discovering all that’s inside of you and others. We actually get to heal the deficit of what we didn’t learn when we are in right relationship with others.
Just like anything else, doing relationships well is a learned skill. It is messy, it comes with rewards and costs and sometimes you fail. However, being connected to yourself and to others is one of the most powerful forces of hope in the world. The people in your life each express the heart of God in their own unique way — and He is communicating to you, holding you, cheering you on, and loving you through them.
So, give yourself grace and time — deep, meaningful, and intimate relationships where both individuals feel known and loved don’t happen overnight; they are built with intentionality and learning.
So who are your people?
Maybe it’s time to dive in deeper with them or maybe you’re still looking for them.
Either way, this year, I hope you’ll join me in finding some space on that goal list of yours to learn how to get more connected to the people around you. It’s in getting connected to them that I bet you’ll find it’s much easier to check off many of those other goals.
Happy 2021!
