It often happens that people come and stay close with people of the same nationality to combat loneliness in this new city. There are few reasons for this but the main factor is shyness and a lack of confidence.

So, how do you overcome shyness? Practice makes a champion so get out of your comfort zone:

1. Accept who you are, so all your oddities and cultural differences will become your advantages. Also, respect all differences and weirdness in the other people around you. You came to London to discover different cultures, right?
2. Think about yourself in a positive way. Why it would be great for someone to meet you? What do you have to offer to someone as your friend?
3. Straighten your posture, keep your chin up and smile with your eyes. Go and boldly ask someone in the street a question, for example about where is the nearest shop, or the way to the tube.
4. While hearing on the tube announcement: “we are being held at a red signal, we should be moving shortly”, make a comment about that to the person standing next to you.
5. Find a person from the people you know who you think is confident. Watch him/her and try to find what it is about their behaviour that makes you think like that. Is it their voice, their posture, the way they start a conversation without hesitation? Copy the way they act.
6. Fear of rejection – don’t worry about that. If someone you meet doesn’t like you, it’s their loss. Remember that there are people who may feel the same – fear of talking to strangers or being embarrassed in front of others is common.
7. Be focused, ask questions and engage in conversation. People like feeling that someone is interested in what they’re saying. They’ll give you the same attention back.
8. Push your limits. Set yourself a goal, e.g. meeting one new person per week.

So go on, meet new people and get the most of your time in London.

Photo from Flickr by copelaes

The greatest messages I picked up are as follows:

Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You need to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.

When you are doing something wrong and no one is bothering to tell you, that is a really bad place to be.  You don’t want the critics to give up on you. The critics are the ones who show they still love and care about you.

Brick walls are there for a reason, they are to show how badly we want something. They only stop people who do not want it badly enough.

It’s cool to meet your boyhood idol. It’s even cooler when he comes to you to see what cool stuff you’re doing in your life.

Ladies, when it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.

When people give you feedback, cheerish it and use it.

Don’t complain but just work harder.

Share the link with your friends and family. I highly encourage you to watch the entire 1 hour video – we have watched it several times already, each time discovering something new!

Where to start?

Social networking – Facebook - connect with your friends online. Sign up, upload your photo, search for old and new buddys, share your thoughts by adding a message to your wall, post a link to an interesting blog post, share your holiday photos and much more!

Facebook is great because as well as keeping you in touch with people you know from all over the globe, it connects you to new people as well: you can join groups with similar interests, or you can even create your own.  It is also a great way to organize an event. Join the Success Abroad Fan Club.

Communicate with the world – Twitter - share you thoughts with the world in 140 words or less. You can read other peoples’ thoughts or ‘tweets’ as well, and if you like what someone has to say you have the option ‘follow’ that person. You can post links to recommend an interesting article or video, and you can send direct messages to people.  If you want to share another person’s tweet that you like with your followers you can ‘retweet’ it.

The best thing about Twitter is that it is a truly instant method of communication: once you send a tweet, the whole world can see it.  If you posted a tweet with the word “Skyride” for example, anybody searching “the Twitterverse” for the word Skyride at that moment would see your tweet pop up, in real-time.  How cool is that!

Twitter supports the use of special tags.  The most popular commands are ‘@’ when you reply to someone, ‘RT’ when you retweet someone’s tweet or article, and ‘#’ when you want to use a keyword in your tweets. Follow Success Abroad.

The hottest news, videos, and images on Digg – find the best web content submitted by users, and share your favourite articles with others. You can submit this article to Digg if you like, just click the link at the bottom!

Find and meet like-minded people on MeetUp – find groups with similar interests and attend a meeting in the real world. You can sign up to a few groups, exchange your ideas and thoughts, get inspired, connect to people just like you, help and be helped. With a user friendly calendar on your profile page you won’t miss any meeting.  Check out Meet up now.

Share your photos online with Flickr – dazzle your friends and family with your latest adventures, and search for some amazing photos from around the world. Have a look at our Flickr gallery.

Watch or share a video on YouTube – you can watch a whole series of films, funny videos, interviews – a whole assortment of weird and wonderful things are to be found here. Very useful if you don’t have a TV set in your flat-share. Have you been hiding under a rock, or what?  Check out youtube now.  Another video platform which we use is Vimeo, watch us on Vimeo here.

Listen to your favourite radio online – Last.fm – where you choose a genre or a artist that you want to listen to, and Last.fm will find similar songs and play them for you. It’s kind of like having your own personal radio station. Genius!

Get an answer on Yahoo Answers – if you have a question about anything, really, you can probably find an answer there.

Other social media services, to mention just a few are Blogger, Bebo, LinkedIn, MySpace, Picassa, StumpleUpon, Delicious, Reddit.

Facebook, Twitter and blogs have revolutionared the way we communicate. Every few months there is a boom for a new social media web service.  What are the future big hits in social media? Audioboo.com for ‘tweeting’ audio bites?

Keep an eye out for Google Wave – could this technology actually replace e-mail in the near future?  E-mail, something which has become part of most people’s, including your granny’s, every day life?  Stay tuned.

Photo by Unlisted Sightings on Flickr

At first, when we come to London we think about getting a job and a roof above our heads. We run after money from one job to another, or stick with one even if we’re not happy there (‘the job market is not good now, etc.’). Once we feel safe with the basics then we look for new friends with whom we can have fun and new experiences. We go out, enjoy our time in London, plan the future ahead, not only the coming month.

Then you may get to the moment where you sit down, think about your life, looking for your purpose. You want to ’self-actualize’ in the most satisfying way. E.g. in this stage of your development may choose to start your own business over having a secure job. You are not afraid to be creative and original. When you are self-actualized there’s no problem which can stop you from achieving want you want to pursue, as you see each problem as a challenge. You don’t worry about what other people think about your actions as you fully accept yourself and you have the support of a small but close-knit group of friends.

Abraham Maslow came up with a concept of human needs. He created a hierarchy of needs shown nicely in a pyramid.

source: http://www.imteachingfrench.com

Which level are you on at the moment? How far it is the top? What are your needs in your life and what motivates you in your everyday activities?

Find out more from humanistic psychology and Maslow’s self actualization concept from the movie below.

So live your life in full, because ‘If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life‘ - Abraham Maslow.