Why Can’t My Friends Support Me When I Need Them?
With your career in full swing, you’re busy, you’re running around all over the country, sometimes, all over the world, your schedule is ridiculously unpredictable. One moment you’re totally excited, the next, you’re nervous and stressed out, the next, you’re catching up on sleep, the next, “Wait, what city am I in? What time zone is it?”
When you finally get a moment of actual FREE time, you want to connect with your friends and family. You want to share your highs and lows with them. But if you call them now, they’re at work. Or asleep. Or, huh? You got them on the phone, but they don’t really seem that interested in what you have to say! In fact, they actually sound irritated with you—and while you want to tell them all about this amazing experience you’ve just had, they want to talk about their job that’s exactly the same as the last time you talked to them? The silly thing their kids just did? The dog?
Wha????
What happened to your number one supporter? Why are they so annoyed? Don’t they GET that this is what you’ve worked all your life for and you want to share it with them?
The problem? Your friendship just became one-sided…
So many folks with crazy, unpredictable schedules have this challenge. When your friends and family, who are living “normal” 9-5 lives, don’t understand how your job works, the can begin to lose patience with you once the regular communication they’ve come to expect from you disappears.
And worse, once you get carried away with all of the “AMAZING” things that you’re doing—the higher highs, the lower lows of fulfilling your dream life in entertainment, you may begin to have the detrimental idea that if your friends’ lives aren’t filled with the intensity and pressure that yours it, that they’re not worth talking about.
BIG MISTAKE.
Like that plant on your windowsill that will shrivel up and die if you don’t water it, your friendships will shrivel up and die if you don’t maintain them.
And here’s the kicker: even the closest relationships may need more maintenance than you think.
If you want your friends and family to be there when you need them—to share the good, the bad, the ugly of your life with you, you MUST make time to not only keep in regular contact with them, but, perhaps even more importantly, you MUST remember to be AS interested in THEIR life and THEIR schedule as you are with yours.
Your friends do not exist to be there only for you. They also have a life. If you call them only at 2am because you’re in a foreign time zone and you forgot to check with them first, they may get angry (they have to get up in the morning, remember?). If you don’t talk to them for weeks because your schedule is unpredictable, they may feel disconnected from you. And if you don’t show an authentic interest in the, comparatively mundane, details of their lives, they will probably feel like you don’t care about them.
And if your friends feel like you don’t care about them, they may stop caring about you.
So, if you find yourself feeling disconnected and unsupported by your friends, ask yourself what have YOU been doing to maintain the relationship? Have YOU been a good friend to THEM? And if you don’t know the answer to that, ASK THEM. They will tell you what they need in order to be there for you.
People usually need to feel loved, understood, appreciated, and respected to be in the frame of mind to love, understand, and appreciate you. You want a dependable friend and, guess what, so do THEY.
So brainstorm with your friends how you can best maintain your relationship while you’re on this whirlwind called your life. Then do EVERYTHING in your power to perform that maintenance. If you do that, the moment you truly are busting to share or really need support, your friends will be there, with bells on.
Tags: celebrity coach, Celebrity Coaching, celebrity life coach, crazy schedule, friends, friendship, love, maintaining relationships, support, time zones, touring
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