A well-balanced social diet

Welcome to The Introverted Path!

Happy Thursday! Hope everyone has had a tremendous week so far.

I am getting ready to leave for vacation on Sunday. It has been quite a long time since my last vacation so I am super excited.

And to make it even more special - I am traveling to Europe with my parents! This will be their first time there.

Shoutout to my mom and dad, who are day 1 supporters of The Introverted Path 😃 

Today, I am talking about the importance of having a well-balanced social life.

As introverts, we know we enjoy our time in solitude.

And while time alone is part of a well-balanced social life, we also need different social interactions throughout our day to feel fulfilled.

In today’s email:

• What is a well-balanced social life?

• Links to other content I enjoyed this week

Let’s dive in 🤙 

So…what is a well-balanced social life?

A study by a researcher at the University of Kansas tried to answer this exact question.

The study used over 10,000 moments across 400 participants.

In summary, the study found that more interactions with close friends & family was associated with less loneliness.

And more social interactions in general throughout the day led to more life satisfaction.

But, the study also found that contentment while being alone was extremely important to having that well-balanced “diet” of socializing.

I recently wrote about the important of being comfortable alone with your own thoughts, and this study backs that up as well.

This study likely doesn’t seem all that groundbreaking or surprising as you read that - it makes sense we need a balance of social interactions throughout our day.

Humans are social creatures and always have been throughout history.

But as the world becomes more isolated with technology giving us less reason to leave our homes, it will become more important to seek out social interactions.

I have been thinking lately about the importance of building “loose social relationships”.

And by that I mean people you see somewhat frequently, but wouldn’t consider a close friend or acquaintance.

For me, this would be: people that work at the coffee shop down the street, our mailman, people I see at the gym or yoga, neighbors, or people I volunteer with.

I have noticed having a couple of these “micro interactions” each day makes me feel better overall about my days.

It can be overwhelming trying to make new friends as adults. It’s much easier in childhood or school when you naturally spend a lot of time with other people.

But as long as you have a solid group of close friends & family, you can focus on building out other interactions throughout your day.

So, as you try to improve your social diet, think about how you can build some loose social relationships with people you come across on a daily basis.

Links that I enjoyed this week 💥 

• Why we need purpose (link)

• Intentional curiosity: Get your brain to focus on what matters (link)

• How to think in funnels (link)

Best,

BG