One of the big challenges I observe when working with adults on their friendships is that sometimes people hold themselves back from creating the connection and friendship they want because they’re mentally stopping themselves. If you don't believe that you’re worthy of good friendships, you’re sabotaging your progress, and this kind of limited thinking can inhibit you from noticing the good friends that are already in your life and taking an optimistic initiative to create new friendships. This is where positive affirmations for friendship come in.

If you’re having trouble believing that you’re worthy of friendship, or if you find it hard to believe that the kinds of friendships you want are possible to create, I encourage you to invest some time in practicing friendship affirmations daily. There are a lot of distractions in the world that'll try to get in your way (Busyness! Chores! Comparing yourself to everyone else on Instagram!). But when you make time to take a few deep breaths, tell the rest of the world to be quiet, then quietly repeat affirmations for friendship, and let the words be felt in your heart, you shift your whole orientation to the world and the cultivation of connection in your life.

Friendship affirmations are also a valuable practice when you’re facing the inevitable part of life that involves letting go of a friendship that either doesn’t work anymore or has run its course.  Friendships come and go — and sometimes when they end, they leave us feeling unfulfilled like when your favorite Netflix show gets canceled after one season. Not every friendship is meant to last forever, but don’t let the end of a friendship stop you from noticing the awesome people that are still a part of your life, and trusting that new friends are always on the way.

Feel free to share the affirmations for friendship below on your Pinterest or social media — just please don’t modify them when you do; share them as-is. And if you want to download a printable PDF of them, you can grab that in my shop. I’ve also got them available as smartphone wallpapers, in case you want to remind yourself of your affirmations when you’re unlocking your phone 79 times a day.

Make time for affirming yourself and manifesting friendship, then dedicate a little time every day towards creating the kinds of friendships you really want in your life. Belief and action go hand in hand. 

FAQs

What are affirmations?

Affirmations are short, positive mantras that you can repeat to yourself any time you’re trying to shift your thinking or beliefs about a certain topic. You can think of them like short quotes that help you think new thoughts. They help you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, and affirmations can help you begin adopting new thoughts and new behaviors.

How do you practice affirmations?

You can repeat your affirmation silently to yourself (especially if you’re around other people), or you can say them out loud to yourself. Get so familiar with your affirmations that you memorize them and can recall them from memory any time you’re feeling shy, sad, or nervous.

To memorize them, level up how you practice them:

• First, read your affirmations silently to yourself.

• Then read them out loud.

• Then read them out loud while standing up (or with your chin up and shoulders back).

• Then read them out loud in front of a mirror.

• Then if you really want to take it to the limit, you can record a voice note reading it aloud into your phone.  Play that back to yourself daily for the next week.

I also encourage you to pick the affirmations that sing the loudest in your heart (these are usually the ones that make you tear up when you say them) and rewrite them in your nicest handwriting, each on their own piece of paper. Then hang them up someplace that you’ll see daily, like on your nightstand, bathroom mirror, cellphone wallpaper, or on your coffeemaker.

Come up with a way to let yourself absorb these words on a regular basis — but don’t badger yourself with an overly structured routine that will stress you out. Let your time with your friendship affirmations be a gentle, welcoming, spacious, and pleasant experience. Like spending time with a good friend … because with this practice you ARE becoming a better friend — to yourself. And by being an excellent friend to yourself, you’re practicing how to be an even better friend to the people in your life — with the friends you already have, and with the friends who are on their way to you.

What’s the benefit of practicing friendship affirmations?

Saying friendship affirmations to yourself might feel difficult or cheesy at first, but it’s a lot better than listening to a repeating track of negative thoughts in your mind. Affirmations can help you increase your confidence, and they can help you practice feeling the new reality you want to experience, even while you’re in the process of creating it.

Positive affirmations for friendship can help you get unstuck if you have a hard time believing that good things can happen for you in the friendship part of your life — like if you feel worthy of friends, if you don’t think anyone wants to meet you, or you don’t know if you’ll ever make great friends in this life. I fully believe that you can! And you need to practice believing it too. For example, you might want to practice the affirmations, “I deserve friendships that make my heart happy” or “Wonderful new friends are waiting to meet me” or “My heart is open to connection” or “I can create the friendships and community I dream of.”

Affirmations can also help you have the courage to take steps that are necessary but difficult. For example, a lot of people feel guilty stepping back from a friendship that doesn’t fit them anymore — they feel a sense of internal pressure to stay friends with someone forever, but if a friendship doesn’t feel like a fit for you anymore and you have a hard time believing that, you can practice saying the affirmation, “It’s ok to gently walk away from a friendship I’ve outgrown.”

What’s a good time of day to practice affirmations?

It’s best to practice your affirmations multiple times a day, in a way that naturally fits into your life. Any moment when you get a minute to pause and breathe is a good time, like when you first wake up, when you’re in transition between different meetings or different locations, when you’re having a drink of water, or when you’re having a meal.

But honestly, one of the best times to practice your affirmation is when you’re already doing something dozens of times a day, like checking your phone. That’s why I made the printable friendship affirmation cards above into a collection of affirmation phone wallpapers, so you can swap them out every day of the month, and practice a different affirmation every day — or just keep the affirmations that you really need to practice the most on your phone for as many days, weeks, or months as you want. They’re only $12 and they’re yours to keep and practice forever.

Another excellent time to practice your positive friendship affirmations is right before you’re going into an event or gathering where you’re going to be meeting new people — for example, right before going to a meetup, a dinner where you don’t know some of the people, a party, a picnic, or even a community event like a volunteering day. Any time you’re going into an environment where you might meet new friends is a perfect time to reinforce your positive affirmations about friendship.

For ongoing support and friendship advice, subscribe to my free newsletter below.

Kat Vellos, author of the book We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships