The New Year has a lot of positives it brings to people. Some people choose to marry their paramours in the New Year. Others value creating friendships when January comes. At best, relationships are booming when happiness is at a high. Coming off fresh from having made it through 2020, it is expected that many more connections will blossom.
So, with 2021 finally here, chances are that people might be more optimistic to connect, even if virtually. It’s not yet the best time to be making new acquaintances while waiting for your car in the auto carwash booth, but it’s the best time to create a bigger network from home and expand your relationships. It’s also one of the top options if you want to create an extensive network, one that will help you move your career to further heights.
Here are a few tips for you to create lasting, authentic connections with other people.
Have More Empathy
The best relationships among people are those where each person has a ton of empathy involved. Empathy – for you – should mean that you’re thinking about the wellbeing of other people, and you’re genuine about it. Many relationships didn’t flourish because the other person was flaunting a laundry list of character defects such as narcissism or entitlement.
If you want to become closer to a person, like a friend or a colleague who can help advance your career, then you need to know what it’s like to be them. Empathy should always be the foundation of a fledgling connection between peers.
Be More Thoughtful and Generous
Thoughtfulness and generosity go side by side; you can be thoughtful without being generous, but you’ll have to follow-up sooner or later. Generosity doesn’t mean expensive gifts all the time or opulence distributed. In this case, it means you should give as much as you can.
Generosity and thoughtfulness can be as simple as giving someone a portion of your time or taking the time out to listen to someone. Gift-giving is just one facet of being thoughtful and generous. Aside from giving time, learn more about other actions that can give someone that needed boost. You’ll benefit from this with a stronger connection with that person.
Be More Consistent About It
Doing something like giving time and effort to the people you’re building a connection with is like a full-time job.You need to constantly do it. It wouldn’t look good if you suddenly bail out from doing things, and it certainly would be a red mark to people you’re trying to build a connection to. Follow-through promises and see them to fruition. Think of it this way – even you wouldn’t like a person who constantly fails to fulfill promises, so why would you do it?
Accept People’s Gratefulness
You don’t need to read any study to know that gratefulness is a positive emotion. Grateful people will always have something positive to say or a generally great outlook on things. When you do something for people, they’re generally grateful to you for that. It also makes it easier for you to create a bridge with them.
Humility is one of the things associated with gratitude; When people are grateful to you, they’re generally positive towards you too. These are great combinations for making a personal connection to someone you’d like to include in your circle of friends, professional or not.
Continue Living a Purposeful Life
Sometimes, positivity radiates from other people, and that’s what you need to do. All the things you do to build connections – like being thoughtful and giving your time and presence to those who need it – gives you a purpose. This purpose is to make the connections meaningful, not just for your career but also for your personal life.
When you find your purpose, that’s also the time when everything else comes into order. You’ll find that connections are easier to build when you have a purpose for them.
No man is an island – that’s why you need connections. You can try all you want to go it alone, but in the end, things are always easier to do in groups. The same goes for your career and personal life – growing a career is often easier when you have people to help you. The same is also true when you’re trying to live a purposeful and meaningful life.