Do something social every day
Relocated to a new country and need to start building a social circle from scratch?
Tired of your existing set of friends and want to meet new people?
Or simply wish to reinvigorate your social life with a kick up the backside?
Whatever your situation, if in doubt about how to go about cultivating an awesome social life, there’s one heuristic you can always fall back upon: do something social every day.
Every day!? Yes, every day.
This won’t be easy if you’re not naturally social. Nor will it be easy if you’ve got a schedule full of commitments.
But it will be the best possible action you can take for your social life.
For starters, doing something social every day generates social momentum in the most intense fashion possible. You can’t do any more if you’re putting yourself out there daily.
Doing something social every day gets the snowball rolling.
The momentum from being social every day stems from its accumulative power. In the beginning, you’ll have to put more effort in finding and initiating conversations with new people, in a sense you’re effectively starting from zero.
But after weeks and even days in many cases, you’ll no longer have to put as much effort into how you go about socialising since the people you’ve now met present you with existing social opportunities you can take advantage of. When you reach this stage, the act of doing something social every day is no longer carried out from a starting point of zero because you’ve built existing friends, acquaintances and peers from the legwork you did in the beginning.
Take my own foray into the Czech Republic as an example. Even though I was only there for a few weeks, I made an effort to socialise every day without fail. Apart from one friend who lived in an out of the way city I only saw once during that time, I knew nobody prior to arriving.
During my first week and a half or so, I attended different events, went to the odd meetup, participated in walking tours, and met people in spontaneous situations. I forced myself to be social even during the few periods I didn’t feel like it.
By the second week, I no longer had to try hard to meet people at all nor force myself to socialise. New friends I’d met even on my very first day in Prague were inviting me to hang out. Another friend I’d met was well connected and showed me a local bar at which I connected others I’d met and soon I’d become a social nexus. I’d moulded a social snowball that kept rolling towards opportunities.
These aren’t earth-shattering outcomes but when you think that there are people who have no friends even in their home countries, the impact from doing this can’t be overstated.
Basic tools for doing something social every day
At this point, you’re probably wondering how you can realistically go about meeting and socialising with people on a daily basis. Sure, you can meet people during the day by walking up and introducing yourself to those you think you’d find interesting (a very cool and life-changing behaviour to start doing), but you’re going to want to join more typical scenarios for socialising too. This means going to events, meetups and hangouts to mingle and connect with others in groups.
If you are planning on getting your social reps in outside of events and meetups, make sure the setting is one of socialisation and not just some interaction undertaken for an alternative aim. A work meeting doesn’t count but lunch with a coworker does. However, your bread and butter will be events and activities built for interacting, mingling and fraternising with others, new and old.
Doing something social every day technically doesn’t require you to go to group events. But making sure you’re diversifying your social life with events is paramount, you’re going to find it a lot harder to socialise with a range of people every day if you don’t go to events and hangouts.
Use the following platforms to find events and social hangouts in an area near you:
Facebook events – Facebook might not be as popular as it once was but it’s still a juggernaut and its events pages contain a myriad of happenings in almost every area you can think of so you’re sure to find something social to attend on it.
Couchsurfing events – Couchsurfing is a staple service in the homestay exchange economy but it also has an events wing where users can put together hangout ideas in different world cities and invite anyone to join. Events can range from classic tourist exploration activities to fully fledged festivals or parties and since it’s Couchsurfing, the crowds are casual and friendly.
Meetup.com – no social site list would be complete without Meetup. At this point, it needs no introduction, there’s something for everyone, no matter how niche, with hundreds of thousands of groups and counting in around 180 countries.
Eventbrite – a versatile platform also offering an assortment of all kinds of events. Eventbrite’s interface makes it seem like it specialises in formal events but don’t let that fool you, there are plenty of free informal ones too.
Google – this one is obvious, you can use the world’s most infamous search engine to find events that aren’t necessarily on event platforms. If you aspire to take your searching skills to the next level, you can use these Google strategies to discover local knowledge wherever you are in the world including hidden and under-the-radar events.
What you attend doesn’t have to be special, it can be casual as long as there are always people there. Naturally, you’ll want to browse events that you have an existing interest in, you’re more likely to encounter likeminded people and build connections this way but don’t exclude yourself from brand new events either. You can cross paths with cool, interesting and well-connected people at any event. The key is showing up to socialise, being open-minded, and making those connections that could spiral into something greater in the future.
Get out of your own skin, take action bit by bit and build confidence in becoming social in novel situations. You’ll be amazed at how this can create a rich social life out of nothing.
Summary
Doing something social every day is the number one best habit you can do to transform your social life whether at home or abroad.
Being social every day can feel like strenuous effort in the beginning if you’re not gregarious in nature but it creates a snowball of social momentum where the effort you put in at the start opens up social opportunities in a not too distant future.
There are countless ways to meet others to socialise with but you’ll want to make sure you’re attending events, hangouts and meetups of various kinds to make the process easier. Use tried and trusted event platforms to find these.
In future posts, I’ll be detailing how you can build a fully fledged high quality social circle in any country you visit in under two months. Subscribe to Abroad Lifestyles for free to be notified once these get released and for other bonuses on lifestyle design abroad.
