Building Your Social Circle

There’s a lot of information out there about who we should surround ourselves with and how we should develop our social circle; that the key to being successful is to surround ourselves with other successful people. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it makes perfect sense. If you consistently hang out with people that have no goals or ambition in life, then their ways are eventually going to rub off on you too. How can you expect to better develop yourself if you don’t have the proper resources at your disposal? It’s like trying to learn a new language without having anybody to speak it with; you can still do quite a bit on your own, but you’ll never really be proficient until you can immerse yourself in whatever it is you’re trying to do. A strong social circle of friends, family, and associates will help keep your ideas fresh, creative, and ensure that you never get too sidetracked from where you want to go. Most importantly however, they’ll act as a support beacon for whatever destination you have in mind, continually pushing you until you reach such a goal.

This means having the right social circle is important for anyone trying to achieve something in life, but is it always that easy?

For example: I see a lot of people complaining about their weight and eating habits, wanting to change, but feeling like they’re stuck in this continuous rut. They’ll say something like "I don't know how to change", or "I don't know what to do to get in shape." It’s actually a rather stupid thing to say, because if anything, there’s TOO MUCH information out there rather than not enough. You don’t have to be a dietician to know the basics of eating well or that integrating regular exercise into your life will help you feel more confident and energized. It’s not that these people DON’T KNOW HOW to lose weight, but they don’t have a very supportive group of people behind them. They don’t have anyone to help motivate them or push them in the right direction. Sure, they may have a social circle, but it’s not one that’s very adaptive to their current needs.

Are you friends and family supposed to drop everything they’re doing and help you with every little goal you want to achieve or hobby you want to take up? If I decide I want to take a cooking class at the local University, does that mean all my friends have to sign up as well? Or if I decide to purchase a motorcycle, does that mean all the guys have to drop their Sunday plans so we can go riding every week? The mentality that most people seem to have is that a social circle is a static thing. Something that doesn’t really change and stays the same regardless of what you’re doing. Maybe you have seven really good friends which you consider to be your “social circle,” and anytime those seven friends don’t want to do something, you drop it. “I really want to play golf this weekend, but nobody will go with me!”

A strong social circle should be something that’s dynamic and ever changing. It doesn’t have to be “these are my friends, and we do everything together.” There’s nothing wrong with have a strong core group of friends, but each person is an individual and will have a wide variety of interests that the others don’t have. If you really want to take a cooking class but none of your friends really want to pay the money and go, that shouldn’t stop you from pursuing it anyways. If it’s a class you really want to take with friends, then your first priority should be to MAKE friends once you’re in class. The class doesn’t have to be a dead-end just because none of your existing friends want to get involved; instead it should be an avenue for you to make NEW friends that have a similar interest. If there are thirty other people taking this class, that’s thirty other people with an interest in cooking. Sure, you may not get along with each person in there, but if you push yourself outside of your comfort zone just a little bit, you may be surprised at who you can meet.

You’re probably familiar with how scarcity and abundance mindsets work, even if you’ve never heard it called that before. In other words, do you view the glass as half empty, or half full? People with a scarcity mindset look at what they don’t have, not what they can achieve. On the other side, people with an abundance mindset focus on what they DO have, not what they can’t get. Applying it to our example on the cooking class, someone with a scarcity mindset would look at the class negatively because none of their existing friends wanted to join them. They still know there’s a large opportunity to meet new people and create new friends, but that’s not what they focus their energy on and so it’s not something they consciously pursue. To them, if it happens it happens, but they’re not really putting much hope into it. On the other hand, someone with an abundance mindset doesn’t look at the class with dismay because none of their friends wanted to join them, but instead focuses on who they can potentially meet. Just because none of their friends had an interest in taking this class, that’s certainly not going to hold them back; instead it’s an opportunity for them to interact with other like-minded people.

In creating a dynamic social circle, having an abundance mindset is a must. You can’t view your social circle as a limiting factor, but rather one that you can continually build upon to help you achieve whatever you’re going after. Doing so not only provides all the regular benefits of networking, but it also gives you a much larger group of people to draw upon when it comes to moving forward with your life. Imagine trying to get in shape when you only have seven friends, all of whom are unsupportive of your goals? It’s certainly not going to be easy! That doesn’t mean it can’t be done, but you have to draw all your energy from within yourself and you won’t have the helping hand of others. Now imagine if you had seven friends who were all VERY supportive of your decision to lose weight; not only encouraging you, but also accompanying you to the gym and constantly bouncing ideas around for eating healthier. Achieving your goal would not only be far easier, but probably a lot more enjoyable too.

Of course, I realize (as I’m sure you do too) that not everything happens overnight. You can’t build a strong, dynamic social circle in a day, but you can certainly work at it. In fact, if you’re already thinking “man, this is going to be tough! How am I going to find people with such similar interests as me?” Then you’re already thinking with a scarcity mindset.

You have to understand WHY you want a strong social circle in the first place. For most people, myself included, this is because surrounding yourself with like-minded people helps push you in the right direction. Don’t think of people as just acquaintances, but as resources. If you desire to do something new or better with your life, you need people that can help pull you up the ladder, not people that will be clinging onto you and pulling you back down.

The final mistake that a lot of people make is passing over good opportunities because they don’t see the benefits those opportunities can bring them. In having a dynamic social circle, not everybody is going to think and act in the same manner. You may have a number of friends who help keep you motivated to stay and shape, but may know squat about running a business. At the same time, you may have plenty of friends who are very efficient at running a business, but aren’t the most up to date on diet and exercise. The problem is, a lot of times you’ll mistakenly blow someone off when in reality they could have helped you in a number of ways.

Maybe you meet someone who knows very little about diet and exercise and knows absolutely nothing about starting up a new business. At the time, maybe those are your two big focuses in life and so you think such a person has very little they could offer you. The truth is; maybe this person’s just a lot of fun to be around or is extremely outgoing and energetic. That in itself is a skill, and maybe just interacting with him or her could help you better your social abilities. The point of a dynamic social circle isn’t to be surrounded by a bunch of carbon copies of yourself, but to surround yourself with people that can help you grow and develop into the individual you want to become. It would be like walking into a library where they only carried five different books; what help would that be to you? Instead, you want to walk in and have thousands of different books at your disposal, giving you an abundance of resources to draw upon.

At the very least, have fun with it. Just because you may run into a few bad eggs here and there, don’t shut yourself out from the rest of the world. You don’t have to turn into Mr. or Miss socialite, but creating a dynamic social circle should be enjoyable. You’ll be surprised at just how many people are out there who can help you grow and develop yourself; not to mention providing a lot of memories and a good deal of enjoyment along the way.