5 Questions to Evaluate Your Friendships

5 Questions to Evaluate Your Friendships at the End of the School Year

There are five questions I want us to be asking ourselves to get a sense of where our friendships stand. Even if you’re not a student or a parent, thinking in school months is a helpful measure of time. Maybe you got some grades. Maybe your kids got grades. Maybe at work you got an evaluation. It’s also worth your time to evaluate your friendships and give yourself an honest assessment. And if you DO have kids of any age all the way through college, this is a good short episode to send them. 

I’m saying “us” because I’m here assessing right along with you as I’m trying to be the friend I want to be and have friendships in my life that feel fulfilling.

The 5 questions also make good journal prompts. Each question deserves more time than I can give them on the podcast. I’ve personally found as a writing teacher (and a lifelong writing student) that putting pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard brings unexpected answers to the surface. The questions are listed below so that you don’t have to write them down while listening.

FIND EPISODE #98 ANYWHERE YOU LISTEN TO PODCASTS!   AppleSpotify.

5 questions to evaluate your current friendships:

  1. Did you get caught up in keeping score?
  2. Did you overly focus on what your friends should be doing to strengthen your friendship rather than on what you should be doing?
  3. Do you owe anyone an apology?
  4. Is there someone out there who might appreciate your friendship?
  5. Did you accept that not every friend can fill every friendship need in your life?

 

Links I mentioned I’d share in the show notes:

The Friend Who Never Initiates Contact

Managing a Lopsided Friendship and Assuming the Best

Friends Make Mistakes

Stop Focusing on the Popular Group

Reconnecting with an Ex-Friend

Difficult Teen Friendships and Levels of Parent Involvement:

Telling Friends They’ve Let You Down

Become Your Own Social Director: Don’t Wait for Invitations

I’m Just Not That Into This Friendship

Every Friendship Starts (or deepens) With an Act of Bravery

Why Big Friend Groups Often Fail and Helping Kids Manage Conflict with Close Friends

 

 

All transcripts are available on the main Buzzsprout “Dear Nina” site. Click on any episode and find the transcript tab.


Let’s connect over all things friendship! 

 

If you like what you’re hearing,  please tell a friend!
Also, if you can 
rate and/or leave a review on Apple Podcasts, I’d be so grateful.

 

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Nina Badzin hosts the podcast Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. She's been writing about friendship since 2014, co-leads the writing groups at ModernWell in Minneapolis, and reviews 30+ books a year on her website.

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Hi, I'm Nina

HI, I’M NINA BADZIN. I’m a writer fascinated by the dynamics of friendship, and I’ve been answering anonymous advice questions on the topic since 2014. I now also answer them on my podcast, Dear Nina! I’m a creative writing instructor at ModernWell in Minneapolis, a freelance writer and editor, and an avid reader who reviews 50 books a year. Welcome to my site! 

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Hi, I'm Nina

DEAR NINA: Conversations About Friendship is a podcast and newsletter about the ups and downs of adult friendship. I’m the host, Nina Badzin, a Minneapolis-based writer who accepted a position as a friendship advice columnist in 2014 and never stopped. DEAR NINA, the podcast, started in 2021, and has been referenced in The Wall Street JournalThe Washington PostTime Magazine, The GuardianThe Chicago TribuneThe Minneapolis Star Tribune, and elsewhere

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