Networks grow through young adulthood and then shrink, so intentional effort has to replace the circumstances that used to keep people close.
The idea
Ask yourself how many friends your mother has. Probably few enough to count on your fingers. Two theories explain why. Socioemotional selectivity theory says that as our time horizon shortens we keep fewer, closer people: a teenager collects connections, her grandmother keeps family and a few intimate friends. Social convoy theory says life stages do the sorting: school transitions, college, a first job and marriage grow your network, while becoming a parent, losing a spouse or getting divorced tend to shrink it. Put together, networks expand through adolescence and young adulthood and then keep contracting. Simply by getting older, your professional self will be less connected than your teenage self was.
How to do it
Run the check: who sat next to you at past jobs, who was at your wedding, and how many would you still invite today?
Identify the people you truly value but haven't connected with recently.
Set reminders and make notes so those connections stay alive on intention once the old setting is gone.
Example
A client of mine had built a thriving business purely on relationships, and her workload was lightening more than she'd like. Her kids were older, and she was no longer at PTA meetings or on the soccer sideline with everyone in her community. All it was going to take was a little more intentionality to get back in front of them.
Don't Confuse Circumstance With Strategy: Relationships kept alive by school, work or community fade when that context ends, unless you replace the shared setting with intention.
The Five Barriers to Maintaining Relationships: We can only track so many people, relationships decay, networks shrink with age, modern life multiplies the noise, and we're wired for the short term.
Join a Community: Find a group where people would notice if you stopped showing up, and skip any where the first question is "what's your ideal client?"
The Recurring Calendar Invite: After a good conversation, make it a repeating calendar event, with a mutual, guilt-free permission to cancel any single one.