You are listening to the Less Drama More Mama podcast, episode 426: Making New Friends as a Mom
This is Less Drama More Mama. The podcast for moms who want to feel calm, in control, and confident about how to handle anything life throws their way. If you’re ready to go from feeling frazzled and disrespected to feeling calm and connected, this is the podcast for you. I’m your host, Pam Howard.
Hello, mama, and welcome to the podcast. It’s officially October, my favorite month of the year, and it’s also one of the best times to join Damn Good Mama, my 3-month group coaching program.
The holidays are right around the corner, and for many moms, they’re one of the most stressful times of the year. The calendar fills up, routines get disrupted, kids get overtired and overstimulated, and you’re often the one holding things together. Then there are long days with extended family, when old roles and old patterns tend to show up. Maybe your mother criticizes how you’re handling a situation, or your child talks back in front of everyone and you feel all eyes are on you. In moments like those, even the most thoughtful, self-aware mom can find herself yelling, giving in, or lying awake replaying what happened.
Inside Damn Good Mama, you’ll learn to handle situations without overreacting or people pleasing. You’ll practice noticing what’s happening in your body before you react, so you have more choice in the moment. You’ll also have a group of moms who understand what you’re dealing with, along with coaching from me as you work through real situations. If you begin before the holiday stretch, you’ll have time to start practicing these tools before you need them most. When you add your name to the Damn Good Mama wait list at lessdramamoremama.com, I’ll reach out personally with the details and next steps. Now let’s get into today’s topic.
Over the weekend, I went to an engagement party for a woman I work with. I’ve only known her for two months, so I was surprised and delighted when she invited me. She told me I’d only know one other person there, but I wasn’t anxious about it at all. I was excited to make some new connections, and I ended up talking with lots of people, including a few I recognized from work. I had a great time. Afterwards, I thought about how easily I could have just stayed home. I could have told myself I was too tired, I didn’t know anyone, or it wasn’t worth getting all dressed up and driving over there. Any of those reasons would have made sense to me, and I would have missed out on the whole night.
I also thought about a recent conversation with a client of mine who told me she wants more friends because she’s been feeling lonely lately. There’s a mom she’s been meaning to reach out to for a while, but she doesn’t feel like she has the time, and she’s also a little scared to make the first move. I hear versions of this from moms a lot. They want more connection, but they’re unsure where they’ll find the time or energy to build it. The party reminded me how many chances for connection show up when I stay open to them. When I went back and listened to an episode I recorded in 2019 called ‘Making New Friends,’ I knew I wanted to share it with you again. Since it originally aired a while ago, you’ll hear me mention the episodes before and after it on loneliness and keeping friends, which you can find as episodes 43 and 45. As you listen, notice what thoughts come up for you about making friends, and think about one small step you’d be willing to take this week to connect with someone new. Here it is. Enjoy.
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Today’s show is all about making new friends and next week, we’re going to talk about how to keep them as friends. Those are two very different things and some of you might be great at one, but not the other. Some of you might need help with both. Most people don’t even talk about these issues because there’s a stigma associated with admitting that we don’t have friends or we don’t know how to make them. But so many of you are struggling with this, and so I think it’s important to talk about it and get it out in the open.
So, I’ll start by saying that one of our most basic needs as humans is to feel a sense of connection and belonging. From an early age, friendships are a vital part of our social development and our emotional well-being. Recent research even shows that investing in close relationships with friends is beneficial to our health, happiness, and longevity. But as we grow older, and especially after having kids, we tend to get so caught up in our responsibilities at home and at work that we sometimes neglect to foster our connections with people other than our kids, spouses, and immediate family members. You might even be thinking to yourself, “Who’s got time for friends? I’m busy enough trying to be a mother, a wife, daughter, sister, employee.”
Like I talked about in last week’s episode, many moms often feel isolated and alone. They feel like something’s missing in their lives, especially when they see pictures of other moms on Facebook or Instagram who are out socializing and who appear to be having a great time. They long for a Sex and the City type of camaraderie or an Oprah and Gayle style friendship, where they talk to each other every day, go out to dinner on a moment’s notice, share their innermost secrets with each other, and go on family vacations together. They mistakenly believe that true friendships should occur naturally and easily, and that they need a lot of them to feel fulfilled. In reality, though, making friends is a process that takes time and effort, and a few intimate friendships can be way more valuable than a lot of casual buddies.
I want to remind you that in last week’s episode, I talked about overcoming loneliness, and I suggested that before you run out and try to make new friends, you really take the time to build up your relationship with yourself and enjoy your own company. I’m willing to bet that as soon as you do that and understand the value in being your own friend and loving yourself exactly as you are, that’s when other people will start to see the value in being your friend, too. And when you get to that place of genuinely knowing that you’re 100% worthy right now and there are people who don’t see the value in being your friend, you won’t make it mean anything about you. You’ll just make it mean that that person’s confused, right? Because you are amazing.
So, let’s talk about that for another minute. We think that when someone doesn’t want to be our friend it means that something must be wrong with us. But there’s a great quote that says, “You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.” There’s nothing wrong with the peach, right? The peach is perfect. But peaches just aren’t for everyone. You’re not for everyone. I’m not for everyone. Not everyone is for me. It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with any of us.
This is so helpful to think about with our kids, too. When they come home from school upset because someone doesn’t want to be their friend, it can help us stay calm ourselves and to teach them that, “Hey, it’s ok. Someone’s preferences about who they want to hang out with tell us more about them than about you. In fact, it doesn’t tell us anything about you at all.”
One of the biggest obstacles to making friends is the fear of rejection, which is a primitive fear, right, because being rejected by the tribe meant something was wrong with you. And without the tribe, you were likely to die. People avoid the feeling of rejection at all costs by staying inside the cave and not reaching out to others and not being vulnerable. If no one sees you or knows you, then they can’t reject you. When it comes to making friends, avoiding rejection can literally be staying home and not meeting people, or it can look like a lot of small talk with acquaintances, and never opening up, never talking about your interests or the more meaningful things going on in your life. This doesn’t mean you let it all hang out and tell your entire life story upon meeting someone new. That’s just creepy. But the more time you spend with someone and the more you reveal about yourselves to each other over time, the stronger your bond can become. Maybe you’ve been rejected by a friend in the past and so you don’t want to feel that kind of hurt again. And you think, “friendships take too much work” or “the potential for pain is just not worth it.” It’s true that as soon as you put yourself out there and get vulnerable, you risk being rejected. But there’s always going to be people who don’t like peaches. There’s always going to be people who turn down your invitation. People who disagree with your ideas. People who dislike you even. What if you weren’t afraid of rejection? How would you show up in the world differently than you do now?
What if you were willing to feel vulnerable and willing to be rejected? Because the more willing you are, the more self-confidence you’ll have. And self-confidence is the most attractive quality in a person. Self-confidence is what gives you the courage to be vulnerable and open and real. And when you show up that way in your life, other people are more likely to want to be around you and be your friend. And here’s the good news. Someone could reject you and you don’t have to feel hurt because you get to choose what you make the rejection mean. And, even if you did choose to feel hurt by it, it’s just an emotion. It’s just a vibration in your body. Once you allow it, you realize it’s really not as scary as you thought it would be.
When my marriage ended in 2014, I realized exactly how important it is to have good friends. Some of my existing friendships deepened, and I also got to know a few acquaintances better all because I let myself be vulnerable. For a long time, I hid my marital problems from people. I feared being judged and criticized. But being authentic and honest about my struggles actually unlocked the door to new friendships and deeper connections. Some people opened up to me about their own marital problems and divorces. Others reached out to offer their companionship or help with child care. Mostly, people let me know I could count on them to be there for me in whatever way I needed them.
My relationships with my women friends have been a blessing. From crying over coffee to laughing in my living room, I know that there are women I can count on to listen to me vent, look after my girls when I have a doctor appointment, go to a concert with me, or give me an honest, objective opinion. Some of my closest friends now are people I didn’t even know five years ago. It’s natural for friendships to come and go, change, evolve, and fizzle out. Friends move away, get divorced, get promoted. Research even shows that we replace half our friends every seven years. Isn’t that interesting? So, it’s good to stay open to meeting new people in all stages of life and to nurture the relationships you already treasure.
If you want to make new friends, the first thing to ask yourself is, “why?” What’s the reason you want to make new friends? What do you imagine will be different or better when you have them? Now, if you’ve been listening to my podcast for a while, you know that the reason we want anything in our lives is because how we think it’ll make us feel when we get it. So, if you think friends will cause you to feel accepted and worthy and secure, those are the feelings you need to generate first in order to create the result you want.
Now, we think it works the other way around. We think when we get the friends, then we’ll be happy, then we’ll feel accepted, worthy, and secure. But we have to feel those things first because feelings are the motivator for all of our actions. And our actions create our results. So, in order to get a result of making good quality friends, you need to start with your thoughts about yourself and your thoughts about making good quality friends.
I want to talk about some of the most common unhelpful thoughts I hear from moms about making friends and then offer some more useful ones for you to try. The first thought is that it’s hard to make friends as a mom or it’s hard to make friends as an adult. I hear this all the time and people say it as though it’s just a fact of life, but it’s actually just a thought. When they think the thought, “It’s hard to make friends as an adult,” they feel discouraged or resigned. And so their action is to not reach out, to not even try to make friends. They just stay at home, watch Netflix, and feel sorry for themselves when they go on Facebook and see other people hanging out. The result is that they don’t have any friends, which gives evidence to their original thought that it’s hard to make friends as an adult.
Another thought I hear a lot is, “I’m not good in social situations.” When people think this, they feel insecure and anxious and so either they don’t put themselves in social situations at all, or they show up all awkward and uncomfortable. Again, proving their thought true to themselves that they’re not good in social situations.
The third thought is usually some version of, “I’m not interesting” or “People don’t like me.” Right? And it’s pretty easy to see how a thought like that will give you a negative result. If you have that opinion of yourself, you’re going to show up in a way that other people will probably find uninteresting or off-putting.
Finally, there are the thoughts and assumptions we make about other people and why they’re not the right fit for us like, “Oh, well she already has her group of friends”, or “She lives too far away,” “We don’t have anything in common” or “She’s already so busy with her kids and her job.” It’s almost as though we’re rejecting the other person before she has a chance to reject us.
One thing you can do to help you identify some better thoughts is to put “new friends” in the result line of your model and figure out what you’ll need to do, feel and think in order to achieve it. You’re basically going through the model backwards, right? If you don’t know what the self-coaching model is, you must go back and listen to episode six: Your Solution to Any Problem. I’ll link to it in the show notes. Basically, the idea is that if you want a new friend as your result, then think about all the actions you’ll need to take to get that result. Maybe you’d need to sign up for a community class. You’d need to get a roster of the moms at school and start calling them. You’d need to start reaching out and inviting people places. I like to take this a step further and ask, “What actions would make this result inevitable? How could you guarantee that you’ll achieve this result?” So, for example, you decide that you want to make one new friend this year, so you’re going to reach out to at least 100 women. And the idea is that if you want a new friend, the chances of you finding her out of 100 are pretty good. But if you’re only willing to reach out to five people, you’ve significantly decreased your chances of achieving your goal. Not only would you increase your chances of finding a friend by reaching out to 100 women, but think of how you’d change in the process. You’d meet all sorts of different people. You’d learn a lot about them, but also about yourself. You’d probably get over some of your fears of rejection and social awkwardness. And if someone stood you up or turned you down for coffee, you wouldn’t make it mean anything about you. You could just think, “Oh, well, that’s not my friend. On to the next candidate.” You’d have so many new experiences and you’d probably make more than one friend, but even if you didn’t, there would be so many benefits that would come out of just going through that process.
So, think about how you’d need to feel to take that kind of action. You’d need to feel interested, determined, courageous, friendly, open, and vulnerable. Now, what would you need to believe in order to feel that way? Here are some options that you can try on for size. Just like when you go into a fitting room at a store, some dresses feel good and some don’t. The same is true for your thoughts. You need to try them on and see how they feel to you. They should be believable to you now and cause a feeling that leads to the action you want to take.
Ok, so “I don’t have any friends” can become “I don’t have any friends yet.” “I can be a good friend to others.” “Potential friends are everywhere.” “Everyone is a candidate.” “My friends are out there waiting for me to find them.” “The more I practice putting myself in social situations, the more confident I’ll feel.” Or even “Making friends as an adult is easy.” If you were to believe any those thoughts, my guess is that you’d feel more confident, interested, and motivated. You’d be taking all sorts of action to find your friends. You’d be going out and making plans and showing interest in more people. And the focus would be less on how interesting or socially savvy you are, and more on how interesting other people are. Most people who get anxious in social situations put a lot of pressure on themselves to say the right thing or do the right thing because they think that they need to be interesting, and I’m always telling them no, you just need to be interested. People love talking about themselves and when you’re genuinely interested and curious about them, in a good way, not a creepy way, they leave the conversation thinking, “Wow, I really love that girl.” And they may still not know anything about you, but because you showed interest in them, they like you. It’s just human nature.
Now, the truth is that potential friends are everywhere. In a 2012 episode of the TODAY Show, women revealed the craziest places they had met their friends: a bathroom, a subway, an accessory party, on vacation. You just need to keep your eyes and ears open for all the friendship opportunities. Forming friendships can sort of feel like dating in the beginning. It can feel a bit awkward at first. Some friendships will work out and some won’t. Some people may be better gym buddies than people you’d call in a family emergency. And that’s ok. We need different kinds of friends for different things. Sometimes you think one person will make a great friend and you find out she’s not totally reliable, or you don’t think you have anything in common with someone, and come to find that you actually get along really well.
So, in addition to practicing useful thoughts to get you into the right mindset for making friends, you can also ask yourself some powerful questions. How can I create more meaningful friendships in my life? How can I make finding new friends fun? How can I show up in a way that makes it more likely for me to make friends? How can I make more time for friendship in my life? Or What’s one step I can take now to move me closer to making a friend? To start the ball rolling, you can say something as simple as, “Hey! Do you want to grab a cup of coffee after drop-off on Monday?” or “Hey, I think we could be friends. You wanna hang out?” If you wait for someone else to reach out to you, you could be waiting a while. So, make the first move. Your new friend is out there wishing that you would. Alright, mama, I’ll talk to you next week.
If you enjoy listening to this podcast, and you’re ready to feel calmer, more confident and more at peace in your family and life, I invite you to sign up for a free consultation with me to learn about how my coaching can help you achieve the exact life you want. You’ll take the concepts and tools I share in the podcast and apply them to your own life, and as your coach I’ll be there to support you every step of the way. Go to lessdramamoremama.com/mini and sign up now.
