Belonging

I was recently asked to write a short piece for a newsletter of an organisation I belong to (Global Women) titled belonging Belonging – noun – the feeling of being comfortable and happy in a particular situation or with a particular group of people.

Belonging is interesting – we all belong in multiple different group, and our sense of belonging to each group will vary depending on how we think we fit (or belong). For a start, there is our family, and our workplace group, you may belong to a group of business owners, automotive , or a social or sports groups or maybe you have an unusual hobby that has a small but enthusiastic group of followers, where you feel you belong, such as friends of mine who are heavily into historic reenactment from Roman times to the extent of learning sword fighting to stage gladiator contests. Within each of these groups that you might belong to there are many subsets, so auto enthusiasts divide into racing, rallying, classic car, hot rod, vintage and many others down to specific marque or year groups and sports and hobbies into a huge array (In my case dancing, basketball and bridge amongst others).

Whilst feeling that we belong is great, we often find that whilst we have one interest or factor that binds us, we may have many other factors where we are actually quite different to others that ‘belong’ to that group. Some will be parents, and some won’t, some might be employees, some retired and some business owners and there will be a mix of genders and ethnicities.

It is worth taking a stock take and thinking about where you feel you most belong and why. This may well guide you around where to spend more of your time and energies going forward.