Ep 269: If You Feel Lonely...

Rebecca felt isolated, and she said, david, I would love to be able to grow my social circle, but I just don't know how. Right. I've not made a new friend in years. So is it too late? Welcome to the Self Belief Chief podcast. You're here with David Holman. If you haven't subscribed already, make sure to subscribe to the podcast. We're putting up content all of the time, the latest research, science, information, conversations, so that we can help you grow. Otherwise, let's begin. So Rebecca is feeling isolated, and she wants something that I think anyone wants, really, which is to be able to expand and grow their social circle with new, meaningful people in their life who bring them joy, laughter, security, a sense of community and tribe. The reason why it feels so uncomfortable when we feel lonely or isolated is, well, at the beginning of human existence, in terms of the way the brain is designed, you needed a community or tribe of people to survive. If you didn't have that, you would die. Now, that's not true today, obviously, but our brain is still built the same way. So it's so uncomfortable because it's that feeling that we need a community, we need a tribe. So how do we grow our social circle? Well, here's the conversation I had with Rebecca. Got a big document out for her. We filled it in together. I said, rebecca, who do you want to be friends with? And she said, oh, I just love to be friends with anyone and everyone. And I said, really? I said, so, okay, so do you want to be friends with members of the kkk? She said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. No. I said, okay. And do you want to be friends with people who commit terrible, terrible crimes? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said, and do you want to have friends who don't have any of the same interests that you have? She goes, oh, no, no, no, no, no. So, okay, so in that case, we need to work out who you do want to be friends with. I said, describe to me your ideal friend. She said, okay, so my ideal friend would have an interest in art. They would have an interest in anything creative. They would love even little things like going to museums. And they would be spontaneous. They would be. They'd have a sort of smiley disposition, so on and so on. I said, okay, great. And she provides more and more detail, and the more detail that she provides, the better, because then we can know what the bullseye is. We know what we're aiming at. I said, okay, great. I said, for this person, what do you need to Develop and what do you need to let go of to meet this type of person? She said, you know what, maybe I need to be less needy. I said, okay. So then I started to show her how she can meet her own needs better. So we remove that particular problem. Then we go, right, so based on the person we described, how does this person spend their time? She starts going through, oh, they probably go to these classes and they probably go to these groups and they probably do this at the weekends and probably do this and that. I said, okay, so let's create a plan to do those same groups, class, activities, etc. Because any, anything that you want to learn or anything you're interested in, you can do it from home, really. Or not everything, but you can do it by yourself is probably a better way of putting it. Why do people go to groups and classes and do activities to meet other people? So you're not alone in feeling that everyone wants to meet new people. There's a quote I absolutely love, which is, the world is full of lonely people waiting for someone to make the first move, make the first move, be that first move, make it. Because there are people that will really appreciate it in the right environment. We just have to be in the right environment. And lots of people who you'll look at, maybe you feel like they've got, you know, they've got the whole life together, but those people might not have the social circle, they might not have the variety of people that, you know, want in their life, which is something we could be able to do now. So once we then work out the groups, class activities, etc, then we start, you know, creating an action plan, actually taking action to attend and go to these things, go to them at least three times to see if it's the right group or class, etc. Because going once doesn't, you know, you always feel a bit nervous, but anxious. You might feel a bit uncomfortable first time. The second time you might go, I kind of enjoyed it more. Third time you kind of go, oh, I spoke to a few people. Find the right groups and class activities where you're doing something that you actually enjoy, where you've got an interest in it, where you can have natural conversation with people rather than forced conversation, okay? So that actually people see you at your best because you're actually enjoying what you're doing. You see them at their best, you actually enjoy each other's company as a result more, because they always see you at your best. They introduce you to more and more people because they think you're cool. They think you're good, they think you're lovely and passionate and everything else. And they introduce more people and more people and more people. So you've now got other people helping do some of the work to help you grow your social circle with people who might have similar interests. And that's where we can go from there. And then we test and learn and see what's working and not working. And we develop and we develop and we develop. But here's one way not to be able to grow your social circle. Don't take any action, don't do anything, don't attend anything, don't do any work to work out who the right person is or the right types of people are. Work that stuff out first. Then you can work out a simplified action plan to meet people who might have similar interests and passions, where, as I said, you can have natural conversation and you might start to meet some people that completely change your life. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the rest of your life. If you'd love to learn more, you can visit the Self Belief Chief website. Loads of free content on there as well. Put a link in the description if you want to schedule some time with me in terms of actually being able to work with me going forward and what that would look like. So you can apply for that. Otherwise I'll speak to you again very soon.