Can Relationships Shape Your Future? - BetterHelp

Ask a therapist > Relationships > can relationships shape your future? can relationships shape your future? Show more Asked by Anonymous Relationships Answered 04/19/2021

The short answer is yes; relationships can absolutely shape your future. Studies have shown that the people in your life affect how you think and feel about yourself. Over time, the way your friends think about and respond to you will strongly influence how you perceive yourself. For example, when someone with whom you have a relationship already sees you as the kind of person you’d like to become, it can help reinforce those traits and positively influence you to help you work towards becoming more like your ideal self. Additionally, relationships influence one’s personal preferences and lifestyle. By sharing things, whether it be music, clothing style, décor, or anything else, these things can rub off on one another, and essentially you can pick up things from the relationships you have. While this may seem trivial at first glance, this can significantly impact how one spends one’s time, money, and lifestyle. This aspect of influence and future-shaping can result in one taking more vacations and saving money, deciding to do more charitable work and/or make a career change, or even produce lifestyle changes regarding diet and exercise. All of these ways of influence can certainly impact your future happiness and health, both physically and mentally. Another way your relationships can shape your future is that the relationships you currently have can influence relationships in the future. For example, if people with whom you have relationships within the present tend to lie, gossip about people, or who hurt you and others, it can result in you feeling less trusting of people and thus make you less likely to open up and develop close relationships with others in the future, or even to attempt to develop and make new relationships, which can result in fewer opportunities and more mental health issues. And finally, relationships can shape one’s future in regards to its longevity. It has been identified that having a strong social network is connected with an individual experiencing a healthier and longer life. A significant amount of research shows that individuals with friends and other support, as in with family, are less stressed and are physically healthier. It has also been empirically shown that having strong social connections often increases one’s lifespan.

Mr. Donald Ford LMHC

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