5 Ways to Grow a Strong Friendship
🌱 It's pretty easy to meet a new person, but when it comes to making strong friendships, it's not just about meeting people. It's about making sure that you can go from being Friendly Strangers to Actual Ride-or-Die Friends — preferably in a way that feels natural and organic. So I've got a hot tip for ya. Take a lesson from your houseplants. Here’s how.
During my master gardener certification, I learned that one of the best ways to turn one plant into two is by taking a cutting from the plant you want to duplicate. Cuttings are typically stems, but depending on the plant, your cutting can even be a single leaf. A single leaf of a succulent is one of the best examples of this — you can often grow an entire new succulent from a single snipped leaf, depending on how you remove the leaf and care for it. But succulents aren’t the only kinds of plants this works with. I’ve successfully cloned all kinds of plants, like pothos, monstera, lucky bamboo, peperomia, and more.
In the most magical situations, a cutting from one plant will sprout roots and continue growing with almost no assistance beyond getting some soil or water to live in. But sometimes the cutting needs a little help to get going. That's where rooting hormone comes in.
Just like us, plants have hormones too. Auxins are the built-in plant hormones that stimulate root growth, but there are lots of natural and synthetic rooting hormones that you can use to multiply your plant stash. How it usually works: You dip the cut edge of the cutting in rooting hormone, then place it in the medium that you're growing it in (such as soil or peat moss), and then the rooting hormone goes to work. The auxins encourage the cutting to sprout roots and keep growing healthy and strong, usually faster than the cutting could have done all by itself.
Apply this lesson to growing a strong friendship: Take a cutting by asking existing friends and acquaintances to introduce you to other people they know. It can be as simple as saying:
"I'm trying to make some new friends this year, and I wonder if you'd be willing to introduce me to a couple other people you know that are also open to making new friends?"
Once you get an introduction, apply some "friendship rooting hormone" to encourage your new friendship to develop roots quickly. Here are five ways to do that…
5 ways to make a deeper friendship quickly
GET IN THE SAME POT
Weave your new friend into the fabric of your life instead of booking time with them into an isolated block in your calendar. Aim to share day-to-day experiences of your REAL life. Invite them to hang out while you do life stuff like repotting your plants, grocery shopping, organizing your closet, cooking dinner, or organizing the garage. In return, offer to join them on tasks that are a part of their no-filter real life too. This advice was echoed by the interviewees in my article about developing chosen family relationships.
WATERING AND FEEDING
New sprouts need more attention. Aim to connect as many times as reasonably possible during the first two months of knowing each other. A high rate of frequency, especially early-on in a new friendship, is scientifically proven to help you grow a stronger friendships than if you stretched your hangouts over a longer period of time. There is a lot of momentum and energy around a budding friendship, so capitalize on that to create a strong foundation for your connection. Then keep watering it with your attention, kindness, encouragement, and curiosity over time.
FERTILIZE WITH YOUR WORDS
Aim for quality communication. The same study linked above by Dr. Jeffrey Hall found that you're more likely to feel closer more quickly if your conversations feel meaningful and include catching up, joking around, and affectionate communication. These kinds of conversations are more likely to contribute to feelings of belonging. In contrast, studies show that small talk and chatting about mundane topics fail in two ways: it doesn't meet our needs for relating and belonging, and small talk doesn't develop a deeper relationship. This doesn’t mean you can’t ever have small talk — just don’t get stuck chit-chatting exclusively about pets, current events, sports, TV, music, and movies. Balance those topics with conversations that help you learn about who you each are as a person and the kinds of thoughts and feelings that are in your mind and heart. (I’ve got an entire conversations kit to help you out if you’re thinking, “How do I do this? What do I say?”)
CHAMPION BIODIVERSITY
Mix up how you connect so your friendship exists in more than one mode of contact, and gives you the opportunity to make new memories together. Two big frustrations that adults who come to my programs express are:
A) Having text-only friendships.
B) Having friendships that mainly consist of catch-up retrospectives.
There’s not enough variance in the ways people connect, nor enough variance in how they spend their time together. Mix this up! Try a range of communication methods. You don't have to use every communication tool that exists, but you have options: Text, phone calls, face-to-face, snail mail, social media, email, video chat, video message, and voice memos are all great ways to reach out to each other and keep in touch. And instead of having that verbal-calendar overiews (a.k.a.a conversations that only consist of telling each other what happened in your life since the last time you talked), aim to also do new things together so you can create new memories together. And instead of just listing off the ‘what happeneds’, also share the ‘how did it make you feel?’ and ‘what did you learn from it?’ and ‘what are you going to do next?’ — take your conversational explorations under the surface.
SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST…
And my #1 favorite rooting hormone strategy is described towards the end of my book, We Should Get Together. It's on page 239 in the paperback or hardcover; the ebook page will vary depending on your view settings. Have you read it yet? If not, grab a copy with the link below. This strategy will take you from zero to sixty in two weeks. It's bold, brave, fun, and I've seen it work wonders.
Wishing you a week of successful friendship gardening!
💚🌱 Kat
