How to resuscitate your Social Life after a busy period

I’ve been in a bit of a hole recently. I’m a very social person and I love meeting up with my friends. I usually make a habit of having a social event at least twice a week.

One of my biggest complaints with some of my friends (which I secretly rant about) is that they become so engrossed in work that they don’t keep in contact and me being the good friend has to constantly make the effort to maintain the friendship. Funnily enough I found myself in the same situation recently.

I decided to spend a whole week focusing on completing my upcoming book. I took the decision to buckle down, focus and forgo social activities. Unfortunately the birthing process of this book took a lot longer than I expected and 1 week turned into 3. (Being a perfectionist didn’t help).

After 3 weeks of limited social life not only did I find myself becoming used to going out a lot less. I hardly noticed that I hadn’t seen much of my friends it became ‘normal’ I wasn’t aware that anything was missing. The week after my 3 week period I felt a bit down and disconnected and found it hard to do any work. It took me a day to figure out that what I really needed was to socialize and be around my friends. My inner child needed to go out and play.

Not having organized anything I did the random call thing and managed to get in contact with an old friend. I then spent the whole weekend hanging out with friends. It made a huge difference. I started to feel like myself again. I’m an extroverted introvert or (vice versa) and I need to be around other people to recharge my emotional energy batteries.

The experience made me realize that it is too easy to disconnect from others, when there are more pressing concerns in the way.

Here are my tips for reviving your Social Life Resuscitation. It may seem a bit like common sense but sometimes common sense isn’t so common.

Acknowledge you’ve been distant. Often times your friends may not notice you’ve distant because they’ve been in the same situation but sometimes they may harbor some resentment about you not being around. Acknowledge you haven’t been around much find out how it was for them and make some time to catch up.
Schedule some catch up time. When you’re busy you’re not going to have much time to think about socializing. If you have a consistent habit of schedule free time you are more likely to do it. You can set up a recurring appointment. Scheudle a free day on the weekend, every 2 weeks or once a month to catch up with friends. They can be one 2 ones or group get togethers whatever you have time for.
Keep some spontaneity time in your diary – leave a free evening a week for fun. Make it an appointment so you don’t forget about it. This works best if you work in an area where it is easy to meet up on the fly.
Using your cracks. We all have gaps in our time. When you don’t have time to meet up use those cracks in time to communicate to the people that are important to you. Have a list of important people and call/text/FB/tweet them when you have a spare minute. Personally I prefer calling as it has more connection and feels more real.
Manage your energy – The better you manage your energy, the more useful free time you will have. So many people would have the time to meet but are so exhausted by work that they need to spend that time recovering rather than hanging out. By managing your energy you’ll fit more into your life. Go to my product page for my solution
Create mental space – Some people need to have their own space before they can engage with others. Take the time to have your own breathing space. When you do you’ll feel more like engaging with others
Force yourself to go out– isolation can be habit forming or can slowly creep up on you. You could be working on a project for awhile then several weeks later when you are in a down period you’ll notice that so and so hasn’t called you for a long time, or you haven’t seen you’re good friend for a while. Force yourself to hangout.
Give up any excuses– Do not allow yourself any excuse for not keeping in contact the busy excuse is old. Everyone in the city is busy. Even the unemployed are busy. Excuses serve to keep the situation in place.
- When I worked in banking I wouldn’t finish work until after 10pm. By that time it was too late to organize anything and too late to call anyone. Going home at an average time of 11pm and not connecting with friends for more than a few days was quite isolating. I used to spend my taxi ride home sending out texts to friends just to keep a connection. Nowadays we have social media so it must be a bit easier but I was never stopped by any excuses.
Identify your energy boosters. We all have friends who make us feel better, make us feel connected and help us recharge our emotional batteries. Make sure you focus on spending time with them especially in busy periods when time is limited. They are energetically beneficial.
If you’re struggling decide if you need to make a friend cull. I’m not a big culler of friends but sometimes when you feel pressured you may need to decide who you want to keep in touch with regularly and who you don’t need to see often or at all.

p.s. If you want more energy or want to increase your your productivity and have more time for yourself. I’m offering a 50% discount for my blog readers to promote the blog. 10 lucky people can download the Zone Life System for half price. Just click the button below and enter the code Social1

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