Finding Community: Next Steps
Restrictions are lifting, you feel more comfortable being around people, and you have missed socializing, so you want to do more and do it with other people! It’s exciting but a bit scary whether you chose to leave your job or found a new project. Whatever it is, once you decide that community and belonging are important for you, you are on the path to finding them. It is part of a lifelong journey to make sure that your communities grow and adapt with you and that your sense of belonging continues.
On your journey to community, you need to pause at various moments to assess where you are and to find the best direction to move forward. First, you should reflect on what is important to you and how you like to engage with people as discussed in my previous post. Then, you are ready to look at communities where you might belong.
Let’s think of Steve who we have been following through his journey through a major life change of a career pivot. Having left his corporate job, he has become a successful consultant in search of community. What are his interests now? One possibility is learning from other consultants and having discussions with peers. If that concept is on his list, he can consider whether he wants a local, national, or international organization. He needs to develop a prioritized list of communities.
Being thoughtful and intentional, anyone can find organizations, entities, or connections that provide the sense of belonging that characterizes a community.
Three Steps
Just like you need to consider your interests now, the first step in identifying a community is to evaluate where you are today. Even when you feel lonely, you are affiliated with others through family or work or location or something else.
Identifying
Step one is to make a list of your current groups. It might include informal groups such as family and book clubs as well as formal groups such as neighborhood organizations, local sports teams, and alumni organizations. Some additional examples that might be on your list: religious/spiritual group, professional associations, corporate (work and groups within work), attending class (seminar), medical support group, medical condition support, current school, extra-curriculars, PTA, music perform group or listening group. As we have all learned from COVID-19, with technology, communities are not dependent on having a shared space so remember to include any virtual communities too.
Of course, you are reading this because you are looking for change, something different so add groups that you would like to join either by the name of the group or a general idea such as “book club” or “studio.”
Sharing
When you look at your list, you might notice that for each entity there is something you share with the other people — relatives to make a family, a workplace, a hobby, a skill, values, education, or something else. The key to community is the sharing. When you are looking for that feeling of belonging, you want to make sure that the community is focused on a current primary interest of yours.
For step two, next to each group you mentioned in step one, write down at least one thing that you share with the group and the category of sharing: Interest, Values, Goal(s), Mission or cause — and quite possibly more than one which is even better.
Note that a strong community does not mean people need to be alike nor that they should attempt to reduce or eliminate differences. A thriving and powerful community might be one that intentionally brings people together to share disparate ideas such as a group interested in lifelong learning or inspiring creativity.
Joining
Now you should look at your affiliations to determine how you joined or how you could join if it is a new one. There needs to be a concept of belonging through being or becoming a member either understood or specifically defined. There are three ways that you can become part of a community:
- unintentionally because you are born into it such as your family and, possibly, a religion, or by circumstance such as your high school and your childhood neighborhood,
- by context such as choosing a neighborhood leading to being on school board (or vice versa), or
- intentionally such as a chorus or a local sports team, even a religion, that you decided to join.
Some types of communities that fit more than one category such as religion. Religion is an unintentional membership for some people while for others it is chosen. Similarly, for work, if you had multiple job offers and chose one because of the people, work could be intentional for you or by context because it was the job in your city.
If you are looking for new communities, there needs to be an intentional way to join. For example, if you go to art class, you might also join a shared art studio for the community aspect. Note that art class can be a supportive group however it is missing some structural components of community.
Understanding how to join a group and knowing the definition of membership for each community brings you to the next part of your journey. With these basics in place, you can start to understand your communities and how you relate to them. Now you can consider what makes a strong community that is mutually supportive of its members.
Watch for the next post about structure, social support, and purpose of a community.
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When citizens can associate only in certain cases, they regard association as a rare and singular process, and they hardly think of it.
When you allow them to associate freely in everything, they end up seeing in association the universal and, so to speak, unique means that men can use to attain the various ends that they propose. Each new need immediately awakens the idea of association. The art of association then becomes, as I said above, the mother science; everyone studies it and applies it.
Alexis De Tocqueville — 1835
