what's up everybody wanted to do a quick one for you today on the basic principle
of making new friends and meeting new people I didn't realize how much of a
problem this was for people until I started BROJO actually when I first
went to university I realized how much of a problem this was I've had friends
ever since I was a young child same group of friends we went to high school
together and then I went to university where I literally knew no one there and
all of a sudden I was faced with this bizarre dilemma I don't know how to make
friends I'm like a fully grown adult and I don't know how to make friends and
this caused me so much anxiety that any chance I had in the early stages of
university of actually making friends was ruined by my constant worry about
how to do it and I spent the entire three years of university quite lonely
because of this bizarre inability to make friends I want to start by saying
how normal this is we're not taught how to do it it's assumed that you'll know
how your parents don't teach you your friends are just sort of people you sat
next to in school or people that you work with and everybody's kind of not
talking about this big secret that nobody really knows how's how it's done
okay there are some people obviously who do know but many of us don't and we
struggle especially if we have to move to a new city or we move to a new job or
we just don't like the people that we're associating with and we want a higher
quality circle so today I'm just going to give you a broad approach to help you
go out there and make new friends first off the biggest problem I see with the
coaching that I do the social confidence coaching most people are either trying too
hard or they're not trying at all and many fluctuate between these two so
people are either going out there desperately hoping to make a friend or
find a partner or they give up completely and stay at home playing
video games neither of these approaches works very well and you might think that
you've put a lot of effort in to try to make friends but you might have
missed a key element that would have ruined that attempt for you and that key
element is neediness your biggest enemy when it comes to making friends
ironically is trying to make friends trying hard
desperately trying to fill a space in your life with people when you have
this mindset people can feel it and it's off-putting for them it also puts you
under a lot of pressure overwhelms you with stress and makes socializing
unpleasant for you it makes finding friends at chore which
of course is going to demotivate you all you need to do to make new friends no
matter who you are I've had clients who are strongly autistic I've had clients
with like incredible mental illnesses and various personality disorders none
of them have been incapable of making friends okay it's not really about you
humans really can connect quite easily your biggest enemy is neediness and a
solution all this neediness is to change your focus instead of trying to make
friends and focusing on bringing people into your life instead shifting towards
trying to create a fun and enjoyable lifestyle for yourself your primary
intention should be to enjoy what you're doing and the secondary intention is to
make friends that's the key problem that most people who are trying too hard make
their primary intention is to make friends and that creates so much neediness
for them and they can't see what the neediness is doing it's just repulsive to
people it's not about you personally it's just this sense of you trying to
get someone and they can feel it and they run away from it but if your
primary intention is to have a good time if you learn how to have a good time by
yourself with yourself doing an activity no matter how people feel about you
all that repulsion that you are doing goes away and it's now
easy to be your friend it's easy to meet you and talk to you without feeling
pressure without feeling like I'm gonna have to take care of you or anything
like that so the practical application of this is simply to do what you love
and try to make it as social as possible to give yourself the opportunity to meet
people but primarily be doing it because it's something you love hobbies classes
trips events visiting venues going to do something with a primary intention that's
for you to enjoy the thing you're doing and nobody else has to like you for that
to happen it's not dependent on approval from anybody else now you can go and
do this all by yourself you can read books you can play video games you can
workout at home you can go hiking by yourself if you also want to make
friends and you don't want to sabotage that all you have to do is combine these
things make sure that you're doing what you love
but that it's the social version of it instead of working out at home join a
fitness boot camp instead of reading a book by yourself join a book club
instead of cooking alone go to a cooking class find the social version of what
you love to do and then still go with the primary intention of just doing it
because it's enjoyable but now you're surrounded by people who could be a
great fit for you because they're also into the same shit that
you're into the likelihood that you could be a good match is way higher than some
stranger at like a random meetup okay or a friend of a friend these are people
who are into your stuff they're doing the same thing you love to do it's an
easy conversation to start which brings us to the final point once you're there
initiating conversations these are the kind of three main ingredients to create
new friends one is the mindset of you doing it for yourself just having fun
for yourself secondary is to meet friends second thing is doing what you
love and doing it as socially as possible and third thing is initiating
interactions when you're there as an additional extra thing to do
but making sure you do do it we have a course at BROJO on initiating
connections we've got a whole practical step-by-step process where you can build up
courage through experience and experiments through meeting new people
and you can apply this at the things that you love to do so we'll show you
how to start the conversation at that cooking class without being fake or
using lines or scripts if you want to check out that course there'll be a link
below but that's the key once I learned this little process once I went out and started
just doing what I did for the love of it actually I did it by mistake I set up
this lifestyle because I'd kind of given up on meeting people I just wanted
to focus on me and ironically that bought me into dancing salsa and zouk
dancing that created a whole community of people many of whom are now my
friends so just getting out there doing what you love and then initiating when
you're there that's the formula all right that's what nobody taught you at
school okay if you enjoyed that subscribe you can click the BROJO logo
somewhere here comment below with your feedback and stories or get in touch
with me personally dan@brojo.co.nz if you need help with this I'll see you
next time Cheers