09. How to find your people
How to find your people
On this episode of the podcast, we’re talking about how to find your people. How do you find your community or business buddies to run with you?
I’ll preface it by saying that I’m not an expert in this area by any means – I’m the worst person to text because I get kind of overwhelmed by my phone and will probably text you back once and then wait until I see you in person to hear about your entire life and every update you have. I’ve just kind of accepted this, and if you’ve been a friend for a while you’ve probably accepted it too. I always apologize to my friend Abby specifically and she always says it’s fine because she expects a response in 3-5 business days. If she needs something in a timely manner, she calls and she just gets it. I hope I’m not alone in this. All of that to say I’m not a perfect friend, but I have been really intentional about my community the past couple of years and have seen the fruit from it.
I want to break this into two parts because I think before we can even start to create a better community, we’ve got to break free from our own thought process that’s holding us back from even talking to people.
Breaking free from the insecurities holding us back
I think when we’re wanting to make friends, we get in our heads so much. We think that we’re the only ones without any friends, we think that everyone is hanging out without us, everyone else is always out with their friends on a weekend and we’re just sitting at home. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Everyone is lonely sometimes. Everyone wishes at some points that they’d have closer relationships or that they had a closer community. So going back to a previous episode to remind you that you’re not weird – so start with getting that comparison out of your mind before we get any further. The longer you’re in that mindset of thinking you’re the only one that’s lonely, the longer you stay alone.
I co-lead a small group on Wednesday mornings with girls from ages 19-27 and our conversations the past few weeks have gone back to all of the insecurities that we feel and hear in our heads when we leave a conversation or leave a group. We talk about how insecure we’ve been lately in all of our conversations and meetings. Each one of us said that we get in our car after leaving a coffee date with someone and replay the entire conversation in our heads and think back to every weird thing that we said, or that we talked too much or talked too little or said the wrong thing. Every single time. And that insecurity plays into the next interaction with someone that makes us kind of freeze up and worry too much about saying the wrong thing this time so we just don’t say anything. Sound familiar?
We were reminding each other in this small group that if we’re all getting in our cars after a conversation thinking how weird WE just were, we’re ALL missing out on every good thing that may have come from the conversation. We’re all thinking about ourselves in every interaction, and missing out on actually getting to know the person in front of us. We’ve been really working through that in our small group together and helping each other be free from that mentality. And I think this is where this struggle with finding friends and finding community stems from for a lot of us.
So how do we combat that? For us in our small group, we’ve just decided to just let each other be weird. Let yourself be awkward sometimes. Quit filtering everything that comes to mind. Yes, sometimes you’ll actually say the wrong thing and accidentally hurt someone’s feelings, but that’s probably 2% of the time and then you apologize and both move on.
I love weird people. I love when people are awkward or stumble over their words or say random things because that gives me the freedom to do the same thing. It helps me not feel like I need to be buttoned up or polished in my conversations because they went first and already broke that silly expectation that we have for no reason.
Give yourself the freedom to accidentally say the wrong thing sometimes and let yourself off the hook – notice next time you leave a conversation how you’re running it all through your mind. Realize that they’re doing the same thing but thinking of themselves, and just release it. Each time you do this, it’ll get easier, the self-talk will go away a little more each time and you’ll be able to be present in and after your conversations.
But how do I find friends?
Now, you may be thinking – okay cool that’s great, but I actually don’t have any friends to even have those conversations with. How do I find them?
And here’s where this podcast stays true to brand even when you may be thinking we’re off track – you have to go first.
We’re all kind of waiting for this community to show up around us or friends to just come out of nowhere. If we’re all waiting for that, no one is making the first move. Jennie Allen has a book called Find Your People, that I actually haven’t read but I’ve heard her talk about it on podcasts. And her common theme that doesn’t change, is that you make the first move, pretty much always. It’s kind of unfortunate and sounds exhausting, but it’s the truth. Friendship takes work from both sides, especially when you’re in a season where everyone is married or has kids and works full time.
A couple years into Chandler and I dating, our whole previous friend group did kind of a complete 180. We were working at a restaurant together while we were dating and most of our friends all worked there too. The environment wasn’t what we needed anymore – we were on this journey towards figuring out our faith and trying to go to church more and being intentional with time with each other, and we went through a really lonely season. We had each other, but we felt like we were kind of on an island. We had friends we saw every once in a while, but it was all surface level and didn’t feel right or fulfilling anymore – we didn’t have much to connect on.
So for a while it was just Chandler and I just being kind of lonely and wishing we had this solid friend group like you see on TV.
For us, we started going to church and we go to a very large church that felt like how in the world are we going to meet anybody. In 2020, our phrase of the year was just to show up. Show up to the things we’re invited to, show up out of our comfort zone even if it’s super awkward and we’re the only ones there. And that year and that mindset radically changed our lives, honestly. We got asked kind of randomly to help plant a satellite campus for our church near us – even though that was never something we’d normally do, we did it anyway because our thing was to show up. We helped set up this church every Sunday from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. for months. It was uncomfortable and awkward at first, but we met some of our closest friends during that season. It’s wild to think now that we wouldn’t know them otherwise.
That just continued over the next few months. We joined small groups, invited people to dinner or coffee and were just very intentional that we wanted a community of friends, so we were going to find it. Not everyone was a perfect fit and we’re not all BFFs but it was like working out – the more we did it and stepped out of our comfort zone the easier it was.
Keep going and keep showing up
We recently went through a hard season this summer and it blew my mind the people who showed up with meals, cards, sweet texts and prayers. There was a moment when we were so overwhelmed with love and just looked at each other like, it’s so wild that most of these people didn’t even know we existed a year ago.
If you’re not involved in a church, find something you like doing where you can meet people. If you like sports, find a league that plays sports and join it. Just sign up and then show up – and have an open mind. If people don’t flock to you, that’s fine and normal. Remember that most of us are just thinking about ourselves anyway. Keep showing up and making conversation. It might not be the perfect match right away, but it’s building that muscle of being comfortable being uncomfortable.
Or just invite someone to coffee – maybe there’s someone you follow on Instagram who lives near you and seems kind of cool. Send them a message and see if they want to get coffee. I’ve had people do this and I’ve done this and it actually turns out great. My friend Natalia and I met at a small group a couple years ago that we both didn’t love and kind of stopped going, but we had followed each other on Instagram during that time. A few months later she messaged me and asked if I wanted to go to this conference with her. And I didn’t have anyone to go with, so I said yes, and we’ve been amazing friends ever since.
And when you invite people to something, give them a couple of dates that work for you. Don’t leave it so open ended and then get discouraged when they say “sure I’d love to!” and they don’t set up a time. This is when we’ve trained our brains to go into defense mode and feel sorry for ourselves and think “no one likes me or wants to hang out with me.” Remember, you’ve got to go first. And if they don’t respond or just don’t want to, that’s totally fine! It’s not about you, they just might not have the capacity right now. Try again with someone else.
Friendship takes time. And it’s hard, especially if you’ve moved to a new city or you’re in a different stage of life than maybe your high school friends that you used to hang out with. Friends change with the seasons and as you grow up, and that's normal.
Just continue to keep trying – continue to step out of your comfort zone. Don’t think that you don’t need any friends, either. We all do. I’m an introvert and love spending time by myself – I can easily get into a routine of not seeing anyone and feel totally content for a little bit, but then I have a catch-up with a friend and realize how full and energized I feel afterwards. We all need people and it’s going to look different for everyone. You don’t have to go out to dinner every week with them. Most of my friends, I see them every couple of months and we catch up on life and that fills us both up, and we know that we can call each other if we need anything in between.
