How To Build Your Tribe
Building your tribe happens one moment, one connection at a time.
We have a mental health epidemic here in the United States. It’s 2020 and people are more lonely, aggressive, and depressed than ever. We spend more time on electronics than we do face-to-face with other physical humans.
In 2017, “An estimated 17.3 million adults in the United States had at least one major depressive episode. This number represented 7.1% of all U.S. adults.”
I’m no psychologist, but here’s what I see: What it all really boils down to is that no one is investing any time into each other anymore. Everyone is so wrapped up in scrolling through Instagram or binge watching their next favorite show, that they forget there are people out there that would love to hear from them. People that need to connect with someone to ease the pain of loneliness.
As I write this in early 2020, Facebook has been doing a marketing push to get people into Facebook groups. Most business and life coaches or even public personalities run a Facebook group so they can have more of a personal touch with their followers/fans/community. I’m personally in 241 groups. Many of which have not had active posts in the past 2 years, it’s definitely time to clean those out.
Five ways to start building your tribe through real connections:
Make real connections with people in real life.
Go try something new and talk to the other people doing that thing.
Schedule in a minimum of 30 minutes per day of non-electronic time. Read a paper book or go for a walk without your headphones. This will get you used to being disconnected from technology.
Join a book club, bowling league, or any other social club or group that regularly gets you out of the house and in front of people.
Call or text someone each week that you have been ‘meaning to’ check in with. If you don’t know where to start, go through your address book or contact list and start with “A”. If you get a random text, letter, email, carrier pigeon message or smoke flare from someone you haven’t heard from in a while, engage in a conversation with them. Life happens. Don’t be bitter that they haven’t reached out in a while.
How do you show up for others?