It’s the New Year and, if you’re like many, you’re ready to make a fresh start. While you might be resolved to exercise, go on a diet, or maybe even launch a new career in 2022, you may be missing out on the most important resolution of all: Ensuring that the relationships in your life are truly serving you well.

Unfortunately, we don’t always value and work to improve good relationships or recognize the unhealthy relationships in our lives until they have taken a profound toll on our physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing. So when you’re starting over in the New Year, why not make a new resolution and commit to enjoying healthier, happier relationships in the year ahead? What better way to begin 2022, after all, than by cultivating a social support network that actually works for you.
Your Support Network
We often prioritize happiness in our romantic relationships. Before making the decision to commit to a partner, we deliberate on whether that person truly makes us happy. When choosing to remain, or to sever, a romantic partnership or a marriage, we consider whether the good times and the prospect for the future with that person actually outweigh a few bad patches.
In other relationships, however, few of us take much time to assess or intentionally try to improve. They simply are what they are, we reason, with little thought to the impact of that person’s continuing presence in our lives.