How To Make Friends | 7 Proven Tips

What if I tell you that social anxiety is world number two fear. 

Social anxiety pulls you down when it comes to building connections. That’s why there’re several people struggling with the fear of rejection and feel hesitant about making friends. 

Making friends is a beautiful journey rather than a struggle. It’s about believing the process and participating with a healthy mindset. This is the reason before we start you have to do an important task, and that’s to accept yourself. Self-acceptance removes fear of rejection out of the mind and helps to meet people with conscious.

Let’s start our journey of how to make friends with some valuable mantras.

 How to make friends in 7 steps

1) Existing Friends Are Treasure

We often sideline our existing friends. They’re the people with whom we are already comfortable and can share our thoughts without being hesitant and formal. That’s why you should practice small talk with them, call them for a dinner or plan a nice trip. This can clear your thoughts and brush up communication skills.

It would be a confidence booster and you’ll master how to control a conversation.

2) No Negativity Policy

VERY IMPORTANT!!!

It’s good to be real, we shouldn’t act fake but! but! but! this may destroy your image and newly born friendship completely. Shocked right?

We all face problems in life but have to learn how to manage pain in front of others. Broadcasting pain can cost a newly forming friendship.  People tend to move away from those behaving like cry babies or spreading negativity. Hiding emotions in critical situations isn’t fake but emotion management. Handing your emotions like a pro can bring you more friends as maturity is always attractive.

3) In Friendship Initiate Not Hesitate

“Be genuinely interested in everyone you meet and everyone you meet will be genuinely interested in you”
                                                                                           ― Rasheed Ogunlaru

This powerful quote explains the whole story. No matter how difficult it looks but you have to initiate.

When you initiate it shows you’re genuinely interested in the person and want to know more about him/her. You can ask people about their interests, hobbies, favorites etc. This can make the other person feel special and he/she may reciprocate. This is one of the most basic but important step to make friends instantly. Here I want to discuss about one very special formula that’s called 80/20 rule

In 80/20 rule, you should initiate and consume 80% of the conversation so that the other person can feel comfortable. In the second half you should allow him/her to consume 80% of the conversation and you own should listen carefully.

Fear of rejection is one such reason that halt you to initiate. Nobody wants to get rejected but believe me the grief of not trying is more painful, so “Initiate not hesitate”. 

Quotes are amazing way of initiating, send some amazing friendship quotes to break the ice.

4) Shoutout The Name

Now this is very interesting! Instead of using annoying pronouns in the conversation, shoutout the name of the person. Not only while making friends, but this technique is effective in building other relationships too.

It has been a proven fact that the most important word for a person is his/her own name. Calling name in the conversation does make a person feel charged up and more interested.

5) Accept And Observe

You might be thinking it’s bookish, but in the journey of making friends we have to respect some basic rules. Observe and accept are two most neglected things not only in friendship but in all other relationships.

Observing is an art and it comes free but to a valuable person

Observe the people you want as friends and know how they act in various situations. This will help you to know their behavior and accept the differences. Once you follow both these things, your conversation style will adapt accordingly. Remember, no two people are same and you can’t follow same rigid conversation styles with every person. There should be some variation in chats if you want friendship of people with variant personalities.

6) Learn And Earn Friends

If you’ve ever noticed, Content is really important in communication. There are several topics which are commonly discussed among friends like music, movies, memes, even cell phone features and many more. These common topics generate a common interest and thus add flavor in friendship.

My advice is to search out some of these common topics and get information about them. You don’t need to do deep research or analysis but at least have a surface knowledge.

Chit-Chat is so normal in friendship which captivate a person and turn him/her into a good friend. Start some research work so you shouldn’t be out of content.

7) Go out and meet friends

This is what most of us are feared of, hang out with friends. Most of us are too concerned about our behavior, interest and habits in front of people. These restrict us to ask our friends for hang out. Meeting friends in different spots like picnic, parties, clubs, restaurant etc. can level up the understanding.

Many of us doesn’t like much outing but you see pearls aren’t found on shores. In the same way

true friendship is found

walking few steps down

with a person somewhat known

at a place unknown

I have experienced personally that a small outing makes a big difference in friendship. People when spend time with others in a new place tend to share feelings dramatically. 

So, upgrade yourself and offer people to meet up at some nice place. This is truly a magical mantra to make friendship more strong.

Final message

I believe friends are creatures which support us in difficult times and are best to share with our happiness with. These 7 mantras are interlinked with each other and believe me they will surely open a way to turn strangers into friends. It doesn’t matter you are an introvert or an extrovert friends are important in life. I Hope you make many amazing friends.