The Only 2-Word Piece Of Advice You’ll Need For Maintaining A Relationship

I recently read an article that talked about overcoming hurdles. For some reason, this somehow got me thinking about life and friendship.

As we get older, relationships (specifically friendships) get more and more difficult to uphold. Things get in the way. Life happens. We get busy.

We get busy with our careers, we get busy with our families, we get busy with our marriages (or lack thereof).

Lately, I’ve been finding it much harder to get time on the calendar to spend with my friends. Either someone is too busy, someone forgets to follow up on plans, or someone completely cancels last minute. There’s always a reason.

But regardless of the reason, our efforts begin to diminish and over time, we eventually just stop trying all together.

Weeks and even months pass by before one of us realizes that we never rescheduled from the last time. Then, all of a sudden it’s been a year that we haven’t seen each other. And that’s exactly how you slowly kill any relationship.

The best 2-word piece of advice on how to maintain any relationship is this…

Show up.

Be there for your friends, for your family, for your husband or wife, your boyfriend or girlfriend. Be there for your loved ones.

Showing up and being present for the people in our lives is the ultimate form of telling them that you still care. And no matter what you say or whatever your excuse may be, actions will always speak louder than our words.

Woody Allen once said, “Just showing up is half the battle.”

So, just show up. And to even take it a step further, be consistent.

Don’t let too much time get away to the point where you stop reaching out or stop responding to people. Our days are numbered. Life is too short to miss out on moments where we can spend with the people whom we care about.