Your Happiness Factor

Networking can be very good for your health! Networking is good for you. So we are told all the time! You know already that you should network if you are looking for work and, oh yes, of course you must network if you are starting up a new business. But for some of us, the prospect of networking can be quite daunting. Now why should that be so? Let us think a little about networking and what it is really about.  Networking is about finding and building new relationships. It is about meeting new people and finding an opportunity to make an exchange, be it simply an exchange of friendship.  We go somewhere to meet someone new. We exchange information and then test out whether they are interesting to us and in return we hope to be interesting to them.  Most of us do it all the time in our private lives. But when it comes to networking for work, many of us feel much more diffident because we are not just looking for friendship.  We are hoping this new contact

Are you one of those rare (and very lucky ) people who enjoys networking?   Or are you like many others?   Do you arrive at a networking event, look around at the sea of faces, then find yourself barraged by a stream of doubts and uncertainties. Negative self talk tells you that you’re a fraud, everyone else in the room is just great.  There they are experienced business professionals at home in this environment.  While you are just pretending, you don’t really know what you are doing! And on top of you’re going to forget your speech, you won’t remember anyone else’s name and there is a very good chance you will forget your own! The “sensible” part of you tells you not to be so silly.  But there you are with these negative thoughts and anxieties in your head.  Relax and take a deep breath, then tell your brain it has more important things to think about!  No, you are not going to have a heart attack as you take the floor.  You’ve got this unde