Self-growth through online communities
We live in a world of unparalleled access to information, entertainment, and people. The internet has given us the ability to communicate at speeds that were previously unimaginable. Furthermore, it allows community members who might never meet face to face to share ideas about common interests, their lives and form relationships with one another. Nowadays you can interact with millions of other people on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc… All for free! Social media is so ingrained into our social fabric nowadays that people spend an average of 9 hours per day on these platforms. That’s almost 1/3rd of our lives!! It’s no wonder why communities within these networks are becoming so important for self-growth.
Social media for self-development
I was introduced to online communities in about 2008 when I found a group on Facebook called “pickup”. The idea of the group was simple: men (mostly) share their experiences and knowledge on how they can be better with women. You would see posts from guys sharing their latest number closes or screenshots of texts that they exchanged with a girl. It was really fascinating to me because at this point in my life I had very little experience with women and wasn’t able to learn much due to a lack of mentors around me. So, naturally, I gravitated towards these communities where guys were willing to help out other guys who were interested in Self-growth.
In these groups, you would get an enormous amount of value from a really wide range of people. You would have guys who were in their late teens giving you tips on how to approach, but also a few guys sharing insights from their married lives and how they dealt with situations where they didn’t get what they wanted from their wives. In these communities, you never knew who was going to answer your questions so it allowed for an infinite number of perspectives from which you could learn. It felt like I had thousands of teachers!
In the following years, I found more self-growth-oriented groups on all sorts of interests: languages, entrepreneurship, fitness, etc… At a certain moment though something happened within my life that made me question everything about myself and I began looking for answers in different places.
My journey through psychedelics
In a few words, a breakdown in my life had me look for answers outside of what I knew and where I was going. In my search, I came across numerous online communities that were related to different psychedelic substances. Of course, the first thing that attracted me to these groups was the “strange” topic they covered but then after hanging out there for some time, I could tell that once again it would be another source of immense value.
As I said before, in these networks you never know who is going to answer your questions so you get an infinite number of perspectives from which you can learn. But what’s really interesting about this particular group is how psychedelics affect people differently depending on their background, education level, etc… Which makes it even harder to predict who is going to offer you value? Let’s just say that there were times where I would ask a seemingly simple question and get an answer from someone with a Ph.D. in neuroscience!
I quickly realized how much value I was deriving from these groups, so over time, I tried to give back as much as possible by sharing my experiences, answering questions, etc… Which allowed me to expand my social circle exponentially? After spending years within the group, now whenever something happens in my life whether it is big or small, I immediately post about it on Facebook because that’s what people expect these days. That said, this isn’t always the best strategy for everyone (especially if you don’t like your posts being share on other people’s pages).
Building your own personal learning network: the TL; DR version
If you’re just looking for a few tips and tricks on how to improve you then here they are:
Healthy self-growth comes from building your own learning network. That means you need to surround yourself with people who can help you grow as an individual depending on different interests such as relationships, finance, leadership, etc… Find these communities online and contribute as much as possible so that others will find value in what you have to share. This makes it easier for new connections to be creat which enhances the potential of finding the right people who can help you out around any corner. One quick trick: join 2-3 Facebook groups per week.
Conclusion:
So what do you think, how does this idea apply to you?
I mean, imagine having a learning network where you’re surround by people who can give you actionable advice when it comes to self-growth. That’s the kind of power I’m talking about. If we were all in touch with such communities then we would be much more likely to succeed in accomplishing our goals and dreams.