At this point, you’ve built up the ability to build individual relationships, and now you’re looking to find more alignment about the things that matter to your soul.
Finding a community that encourages and facilitates you in doing the things you love is essential to growing into shoes bigger than you thought possible to fill. The personality traits that brought you to intrinsic joy of action help you thrive as you get to become more of yourself.
An aligned community lets you take advantage of teamwork, putting minds together to achieve more than one can do on its own. So, finding a group of people who cultivate your interests should be high on your list of priorities.
To do this, you want to start by brainstorming activities you enjoy. Make a list of 15 things you like doing or want to try doing. Next, you should find out where you’re able to do those activities. Whether it is skydiving or board games, usually there are people who meet to enjoy each other’s company as they pursue their passions.
If you can start hanging around those locations, try to find someone receptive to getting to know you who’s decently well-received. This person is usually popular, and ultra social. You want to impress this person because they know everyone. When they’re impressed, they’ll naturally start to introduce you to the rest of the group in order to both look good and to help you find your footing. Once you’ve become well known in the group, if you can play this role for other people, you’ll be cherished and invited to a lot of different things!
Usually, there’s a couple people who are receptive, a few of which don’t fit in, and aren’t completely accepted. Don’t put too much effort into being liked by this person since they’ll naturally like anyone who isn’t nasty to them, and focus on making a good impression on the rest of the group.
You should try to join communities that aim to uplift and are centered around being a better version of yourself in some way. While a weed club or a video games club might be intrinsically fun, these groups should be avoided since they don’t build the social skills or self-confidence necessary to succeed. Generally, if the club does things you find somewhat difficult, such as improv or standup comedy, these groups will be a little less initially welcoming.
Let’s Talk About Hazing
Hazing acts as a way of bonding over a shared struggle. Fraternities have hazed since the beginning of time, and I doubt they will stop anytime soon. While you may not be joining a fraternity, many groups have a somewhat unpleasant initiation to make what they offer appear more desirable (after all you’ve sacrificed to be part of this group).
Broadly speaking, you don’t want to lose your cool during this initiation phase, as it is a way of failing the test. Oftentimes groups wish to exclude people with insufficient emotional self-management skills. Provoking conflict early allows them to see who’s got the skills to do well in the group.
While different types of hazing may have slightly different goals, recognizing that this is a tacit goal of hazing, will help you ‘pass’.
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