Change Your Mindset with New People
And you can do it online!
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
― Jim Rohn
To change your social environment you need new habits. New data sources may offer opportunities to meet new people. The host of the podcast you start to listen to, the owner of a blog you start to follow, their followers — all of them are potential new buddies.
Online Friends
I encourage you to look for new acquaintances online. It’s not true that online relationships are all impersonal and superficial. They tend to be that, but they can be so much more.
About a year ago, I joined “Pat’s First Kindle Book” on Facebook. It’s a huge group of indie authors who share not only tips and tricks, but also encourage and cheer each other. I learned a lot there, but I also got new business connections, including the editor of a couple of my books, who also became my accountability partner.
Social media can be addictive, so beware. While the Transformation Contest was running, I spent an hour a day reading my friends’ entries and commenting on them.
But social media is also very handy in developing habits. You can set the reminder to log onto Facebook at 9 p.m. and set the timer to spend just fifteen minutes on it. You don’t have such flexibility with one-on-one interactions.
Once you change the kind of information you absorb, the kind of people you interact with, and your internal interpretation of your experiences, your actions will change too.
Accelerate with New Experiences
To accelerate this process, you should consciously look for new experiences. Start a new activity, preferably involving new people, and you will attain the change of all the three basic elements of personal philosophy at once.
For me, such an activity was joining the Transformational Contest. There I met people from other continents and cultures with different sexual orientations and religious beliefs, an amazing mix of individuals I wouldn’t have met in the offline world. I started a new activity, journaling (up until the contest, I had only a gratitude diary for my wife).
And the nature of this activity made me mindful of my internal interpreter. I was describing my actions and motives. I was giving my opinions and advice to the other contestants.
It accelerated my progress many fold, but I saw it only in hindsight. And I did it all on a whim — “Why not join the online contest, it can be fun, it can be useful.” You can design your accelerator consciously, knowing which elements to seek.
Whatever activity you choose for gaining new experiences, I strongly encourage you to socialize with new people. Humans are the most unpredictable creatures on the planet. They bring the indeterminism factor into your life like nothing else.
Action Items:
- Carefully choose an online community that shares your passion and values.
- Join such a community, interact there daily, and track your time spent (beware of a social media addiction).
I took this article straight from my book, Trickle Down Mindset
