How to Find Your Community
One of the things we struggle the most with as humans is finding that person-to-person connection with others. Whether it’s finding a close friend group to support you, fellow colleagues and professionals to commiserate with, or a family to help us on our journey, relationships are at the heart and soul of any true balanced life.
So how do we find that community when we need it the most? Sometimes it feels so elusive, like everyone around it has one except for us. But here are the top tricks for finding your perfect community:
know who you are
The first thing you need to do in order to find a group that works for you is know know who you are. You want to know what your values are, and the type of people you want to be around if you want to make the right kind of connections. If you know you prefer smaller groups with intimate conversations, a loud music concert might not be where you start looking. Find out what you want, and then find people who want that too. You don’t want to spend your days surrounded by people aligned with some fake version of who you are. Most likely, then they won’t actually share the same values, passions, interests, etc as you and it won’t be a true community.
Be who you are
Seriously. The thing about finding the people who will support you when you’re down, push you to do bigger and better things, and share your life with is to simply be you.
If you hide what you’re truly interested in, or who you’re inspired by, or what your real personality is, the people around you will be able to tell. They won’t want to share their real selves with you because they’ll be able to tell that on some level, you won’t meet them in that place of vulnerability. The real secret to feeling that human connection is allowing someone to see your true self, and to honor their true self in return.
Say “Screw it” to Fear
When you’re trying to find new people to spend your time with, you have to put yourself out there. Right now, you most likely can think of a handful of acquaintances (or more!) that you’d be interested in getting to know better. The problem is going from that level of relationship to something deeper. It requires taking a deep breath and making the first move. And sometimes, that can be daunting (especially for an introvert).
But you just have to do it anyway.
Making friends as an adult is weirdly hard. Whether it’s getting closer to someone you already know, attending a group event and walking up to a stranger, or starting a new relationship from scratch, there’s always the fear of “what if they don’t like me?”. It’s basic level human psychology to want to fit in and assimilate with the people around us. So when those moments of self doubt creep in, ask yourself what is the worst that could happen. Usually, it’s that they would say no, and you’d stop wasting your time trying to connect again. And that’s really not that bad.
Where have you found your best community? Share your story with me in the comments below, or join the party on my Instagram and share there: https://www.instagram.com/katrina.widener/
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