How belonging to a group boosts your confidence

The results are in. Belonging to a group boosts your confidence.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know I’m an active runner and member of Petts Wood Runners.

Twice a year, my club offers a free running course for beginners. I’ve been leading or co-leading for the past 2 or 3 years. At the weekend, it was week 1 of the Spring beginners course. Wow! We had 63 people turn up; specifically 57 women and 6 men. I’m always surprised at the high proportion of women who join the course. What I notice is that as the individual’s fitness starts to return, so their self-confidence starts to increase.

How belonging to a group boosts your confidence

Doing fitness in a group seems to be something that women enjoy more than men. I am absolutely convinced of the power of belonging to a group – for confidence, inspiration, motivation, encouragement, challenge. That’s why I love running peer supporter courses for NCT, why I love my NCT antenatal sessions, it’s why I belong to a mastermind, and it’s what I love about my group programmes. There is nothing like the support of a group of like-minded women facing similar challenges to keep you going: to encourage you, support you, challenge you, inspire you, spark fresh creativity.

There is a Jim Rohn quote that sums up the power of people: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” It really is true.

We do have a basic human need to belong to a group. Belonging to a group with a common goal or purpose can give you extraordinary results and create a deep and lasting bond.

What is it about belonging to a group that makes a difference?

But what is it about belonging to a group that makes a difference to your confidence?

Learning – when you belong to a group, you learn from your peers. From their experiences, their perspective, their ideas.

Networking – when you belong to a group, it provides opportunities for networking with like-minded people. Whether you join a crochet group, a business mastermind, or a beginners running course.

Sharing experiences – there is nothing like the sharing of similar experiences to know that you’re not alone, to stop you going round in circles with your ideas, plans and decisions.

Motivation and inspiration – it can be incredibly inspiring, uplifting and motivating to work through challenges alongside others.

Accountability – if you committed to the group to do something (whether it’s going for a run mid-week, calling a potential client, contacting an ex-manager, updating your CV), that WILL hold you accountable. Therefore you will achieve far more and make swifter progress when you call upon the power of belonging to a group.

Creativity – when you feel like you are at a dead end, when you no longer know your left from your right, when you’re feeling so overwhelmed that you can’t make decisions with confidence, it is so powerful to get that lift from brainstorming with others who have been there, done that and got the t-shirt; to get fresh perspective and ideas on how to approach your challenge; to approach the challenge from a different angle; to know what worked for others before you.

Connection – when you are on your own, often you feel isolated and yet, look around, 100s of women are going through the same experiences as you – often on their own too. Belonging to a group gives you that human connection that we all need and helps you to know that “it’s not just you”.

Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you

To finish my reflections on how belonging to a group boosts your confidence, let me share this quote from Amy Poehler.

Belonging to a group can be amazing. When like-minded women gather together, THIS is when the magic happens and the result is always bigger than the sum of the parts.

Think about the groups you have belonged to – which ones made a positive difference and had an impact on your confidence or success?

We are the sum of the people that we spend the most time with. That means there may have been times when the groups that you belonged to had a negative effect. What differences did you notice in the groups? How did it affect your confidence? Your self-belief? Your progress or your achievements?

However much confidence you already have, whatever success you are striving to achieve, you will benefit from belonging to a group. My beginners on the running course WILL love the power of the group and how this affects their confidence. It means their chances of success for that goal are much higher, than if they try to do this on their own.