How to choose an environment in immigration
'27.03.2021'
Source: Pink
When you move to a new country that will become your home, you have to change not only your place of residence, but also your social circle.
The people you are friends with, work with, live with, and communicate with regularly affect your life to one degree or another. Immigration is a rare opportunity to completely renew social ties by choosing an environment that will help you feel better in a new place and successfully achieve new goals, writes Pink.
People who do not blame
It would seem that in order to realize ambitious goals, it is necessary to surround yourself with ambitious people, it’s best to talk about career with accomplished professionals, and about parenting with people who have children.
The commonality of experience, of course, facilitates communication and provides topics for conversation, and the expertise of more experienced people can move you forward. But one of the most important qualities of supportive communication is not only being in the same context, but also not condemning the interlocutor's characteristic - neither lifestyle, nor career choice, nor mistakes made by others.
In post-Soviet society, most people confuse condemnation and constructive criticism with comments about future plans, relationships and chosen career opportunities - and can easily clip the wings of the most ambitious ideas. “This is too difficult a task: you shouldn't take it on”, “Long-distance relationships are a bad idea”, “You are too immature for parenting” - such comments are easy to get in a completely neutral conversation, and after them it turns out to be too difficult.
Therefore, it is worth paying attention to those people who do not treat the verdicts as the only way to discuss reality. Similar considerations can always be expressed by choosing other words: less categorical, more personal and close to a particular interlocutor. “Look, what obstacles, I think, you will face”, “Relations at a distance will require great mental strength from you”, “Do you need my help in preparing for pregnancy: doctors' contacts, money, consultations?”. This is a fundamentally different type of participation in your life — participation with suggestions of practical help and without judgment.
Notice how people around you tend to condemn others: sooner or later they will condemn you, if you do not live up to their expectations. And, probably, the fear of condemnation from the nearest environment suppresses your motivation to choose a case that does not cause someone's approval. But communicating with people who know how to rejoice and empathize with others, regardless of whether they justify their expectations, is always valuable strong feedback and an unusual view of the situation. Instead of your potential mistakes, they will see room for action and new opportunities.
People who inspire
“This person is just burning his own business” or “Wings grow from communication with her” - so often people talk about people who are sick of all their activities and are actively involved in the surrounding life. Inspiration and charisma are still unexplored and elusive from simple interpretations - is it a matter of emotional intelligence, character, temperament, relevance or self-confidence?
The only thing that can be said for sure is that inspirational people instill confidence in us, provide a living example of overcoming difficulties, and give a charge of cheerfulness to move on. It’s absolutely not necessary for such people to stubbornly move forward and never doubt anything or seem invulnerable - it is important that in their presence you feel your own value and strength in order to change.
Someone calls such people role models - there is no need to be in constant contact with them to align with them: inspiring known and unknown people, whose accounts you subscribe to, whose memoirs and interviews you read, can be considered an environment in our virtual times. However, it is worth paying attention to the fact that in the immediate environment - in partnership, the working team - inspiration is an immeasurable value.
Seeing that colleagues do not pull the strap, but sincerely love their work, you will surely grow up as a professional and learn a lot from each other. Realizing that a partner and close friends want to develop, are looking for new tasks and hobbies for themselves, are able to overcome crises with a constructive attitude to the problem, you will want more for yourself. People who inspire are almost always interested in the outside world, and they are rarely bored with themselves. Find such people for yourself, take their stories from the bookshelf, watch movies about them and read their stories. Most likely, the more such stories relate to the experienced moments of hesitation and overcoming, the easier it will be for you to compare them with yourself.
People who care
“You need the most” or “What do you have to do with this?” - these formulations from childhood sound like reproaches. Indeed, there seems to be nothing worse than being a person who cares about everything. On the other hand, there is nothing more killing the vector of internal development than the cooling indifference from the side.
Apathy and skepticism are contagious - and if in your environment most people are indifferent to you and to each other and prefer not to be involved, it will sooner or later affect your behavior: causeless tiredness, satiety and a negative outlook on the world around us.
The ability to organize people around them, the desire to hear and learn from other people’s experience, the desire to help, is a distinguishing feature of proactive people, communication with which changes the outlook on things. People who care, tend to see injustice, stand up for others, take interest in life outside their own comfort zone and improve the space entrusted to them. Their concern for themselves and others may, on the one hand, be almost imperceptible, on the other - always based on good will and free choice. They are not shy and are not afraid to make efforts to make the people around them better.
It is not only necessary and useful for such people to ask for support (if, of course, the first condition of this text is fulfilled) - it’s just interesting to be with them, work and do something together. A caring partner will react to your mood, a caring colleague can lead the overall project to a better result, you can plant a garden in the courtyard with caring neighbors, and caring parents of your child’s classmate can be allies in the struggle for your important endeavor.
People who care, as a rule, are able to unite, negotiate and hear others and give our secluded and often virtual life a different dimension. The most important thing you should pay attention to is that they help others not to the detriment of themselves, do not overwork and cooperate, hearing your expectations and understanding the interests of all parties.
People who do what they say and say what they think
It would seem that this is a simple trait, but it is rarely found in everyday communication - its absence in people costs us a huge amount of lost time. You are probably familiar with people who have been writing for years “I ought to meet” and do not meet anyone, or you yourself are this person.
We all know people whose verbal instructions cannot be understood in order to figure out what they want to receive from others. All passive-aggressive communication is based on what they mean one thing, but they say something completely different. Partnership quarrels are also very often built: resenting the long-standing and unrecognized events in the history of the couple, two are fixed on short-term stimuli. Not "It seems to me that we spend little time on each other," but "Why do you always do this?"
The ability to formulate anxieties, hopes and expectations quickly and directly is a skill that we must continue to work on all the time, and it is very valuable when it is encountered in the immediate environment.
There is hardly anything more valuable in the work than the figure of a boss who does what he says and says what he thinks. If you work for a person who is able to issue tasks in the form of a clear and simple list and does not deviate from formal requirements, without consulting you, consider yourself lucky. If you are looking for yourself and a new job, when deciding where to go next, make sure that bosses and colleagues say simple, unambiguous things that do not have a second layer, and the list of explicit requirements does not add a list of implicit yet to find out.
The less time you spend on finding out the true meaning of the words of the boss, colleagues and subordinates, the more time you will have to do the actual work. Try to limit communication with people whose words and actions constantly conflict with each other, and promises are not pathologically fulfilled.
Try to be responsible for your promises and, in case of lack of confidence in your abilities, leave for yourself the opportunity to refuse further communication without offending anyone. Get close to people who can correctly and straightforwardly communicate what they like and dislike, and avoid those who speak half-heartedly, incomprehensibly and confused: most likely, you will need a lot of time and energy to understand these people and even more so to justify their expectations.
