Core value · Love family
Relationships
Investing in the people in your life
What does relationships mean as a core value?
Relationships as a core value means investing time and effort in the people in your life, deliberately building and keeping connections with family, friends and colleagues over many years.
Relationships, for you, are something you tend. You remember birthdays, check in after the difficult meeting, keep up with former colleagues and make the effort to see friends who have moved away. Behind that effort is a belief that people are the real wealth in a life, and that the best relationships are built deliberately over time. You’d rather have a long list of people you can call than a long list of achievements.
What does relationships look like in practice?
- You send a quick message when something reminds you of someone you haven’t spoken to in months.
- You make time for a coffee with a new colleague in their first week.
- You keep relationships going after a job ends, a move happens or a project wraps up.
- You introduce people who ought to know each other.
- You make the first move to repair a falling-out.
When is relationships overplayed?
Invest in everyone and you can end up spread too thinly for anyone. You say yes to every catch-up, avoid necessary conflict to keep the peace, and struggle with decisions that might disappoint someone. Leaders can find it hard to give difficult feedback to people they’re close to. Healthy investment is selective and honest: it goes deep with some people and accepts lighter ties with others. One thing worth trying is to name the five people you most want to be close to in ten years, then look at where your time actually goes.
Often confused with
Relationships vs Friendship
Friendship is about particular close bonds. Relationships is wider: active investment in your whole web of people, from family to colleagues to old neighbours.
Relationships vs Love
Love is deep care and affection. Relationships is about the effort you put into connections, many of which matter to you without being loving in that deep sense.
Relationships vs Connection
Connection is the feeling of being linked to others. Relationships is the ongoing work that builds and maintains those links over years.
Questions to sit with
- Which relationships are you maintaining out of habit, and which are you neglecting that matter more?
- Who have you not spoken to in a year that you’d be sad to lose altogether?
- What difficult conversation are you avoiding to keep a relationship comfortable?
More values in Love
Deep feeling and close relationships.
About the author
Matt Rutherford is a Career and Leadership Coach. The Values Finder is the same exercise he uses with his coaching clients. He also writes Stuff that MattRs, a weekly newsletter with practical ideas to help you think clearer and work better.
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