There are just certain times of life when you’re not around the people that you love the most. Whether this is a business trip or you’re just generally away from your family or on some type of extravagant travel bonanza. Whatever it may be there are times when you’re not going to be in your comfort zone and you might need just a little bit of the people time to help you get through those tough days.
“No! I did not fart. I guess I got the wrong day!”
Getting over those slumps and surviving can be very important especially for extroverted people. I have for you 4 simple cures that will help you deal with this form of loneliness while you’re out and about.
Number 1 – Join A Group Of Networking People
A couple weeks ahead of time, or preferably a couple months, see if there are any type of networking groups or seminars or social gathering entities that are related to either your work or something you’re interested in. Chances are these societies will have a chapter or an off-shoot group that is in the place that you’re going to.
For instance if you are an engineer and you joined IEEE then you know there’s going to be some chapter of IEEE no matter where you go and you’ll be able to meet up with people there. Look for LinkedIn groups or forms related to those societies. Get in there a couple weeks ahead of time and say, “Hey I’m going to be in whatever, yada yada, anyone want to meet up, and talk about topic X.” It’s pretty simple and it’s a good way to have something else to do to get you out of that slump.
Number 2 – Make An Effort To Make New Friends
Now whether this is you just going down and doing a couple hours’ worth of work at the local coffee shop – stay away from Starbucks – then that’s all you need to do. Or sometimes you can go to the library or “tech” spaces where people get together and share resources to come up with great new ideas and projects.
These are things that you can do to still get work done, but be around other like-minded people and potentially make new friends in that environment.
Number 3 – Find A Hobby That You’re Interested In
If you’re interested in a hobby, I can guarantee there are thousands and thousands of people that are too and there are also websites that detail these hobbies. There are community groups, forums, meet-ups, and other social activities related to these hobbies that have spread out all over the world.
Join these, keep up with them, and be active in them before you go on your trip that way you can do the same and meet up with them when you get there. If you’re playing some wonderfully enticing card game then you can have a gathering and do some magic. Or if its little robot figurinesâÂ?¦or its knittingâÂ?¦ or its flag football it doesn’t matter, get together and have some fun with the hobby or sport you are interested in .
Number 4 – Ask Co-Workers Out To Dinner Or A Movie
Chances are if you’re traveling for business or you have a branch co-worker in this destination ask them out for a nice, friendly and professionally – oriented get together. Now you do have to be careful here, I’m not suggesting that you do any hankie-pankie or any goofy stuff.
This is at best done during the day and fun time with this person or group of people so that you can get other stuff done, hopefully related to work or just to pass time until the next business day.
Deal With Your Loneliness By Getting More Done
It really doesn’t take much to help deal with this loneliness, especially if it’s related to your work and the simple cures you went through can help with these slumps.
If you join a group of networking people, you make an effort to make new friends, or you find a hobby that you’re interested in or maybe even ask some of the co-workers you’re traveling with to get together during the day you’ll have a better chance of blasting through these down times. Fill you’re down times with useful tasks, projects, and things to do and it’ll fly by like you never knew.