Because there are preconceived notions, people who are better than themselves are arrogant, unwilling to help others, and unwilling to make friends with themselves.

1.

Because I believe that "making friends with excellent people" is the best strategy from mediocrity to excellence, in the past three years, I have been adhering to the principle of making friends principle. Although this sounds simple, very few people actually do it.

I think on the one hand it is because: few people really spend time and energy to deliberately polish their social skills. On the other hand, it is also the threshold that prevents people from making friends with people who are better than themselves: in the minds of most people, there are three deep-rooted misconceptions -

Misconception 1: Excellent people People are arrogant

Misconception 2: Asking for help = causing trouble

Misconception 3: People who are better than me will not make friends with me

Whenever you want to get to know someone better than yourself, you will be affected by these concepts and end up being discouraged... Now, do you see clearly what the shackles are that bind you? Don’t be nervous even if you find yourself shot three times in a row. All we have to do is put them out of our minds.

2.

Before correcting these wrong concepts, we need to answer a more fundamental question: How did those wrong concepts form?

I have a good friend (here, let "Yiyi" replace her name). She is good-looking, has a lively and cheerful personality, and is sincere to others, so both boys and girls like to be friends with her. Because of her tutoring, Yiyi never fell in love before going to college. It wasn't until she was about to graduate that she fell in love with a senior from the same department who had dinner dates with her every day and had been pursuing her for a whole year.

They were very sweet together at first, and we friends were also happy that Yiyi was finally single. However, problems soon emerged. Because Yiyi is so popular, in addition to her best friends, she often has ordinary male friends ask her to have dinner and chat - in our opinion, this is really normal.

But the senior always felt that she was having an affair with someone else. He quarreled with her every time because of this matter, and even said a lot of unpleasant things, and finally broke up with her. Yiyi was very sad during that time. She couldn't understand why normal interactions between friends would be considered ambiguous by her boyfriend.

As a girl who has never had an affair with the opposite sex or been in love, the concept of "cheating" does not exist in her dictionary. Later, when we accidentally talked about this matter with another friend, we found out that when the senior was pursuing her, he actually had a girlfriend...

I was very impressed by Yiyi's story. Because it well confirms this truth that we all know -

A kind-hearted person will think that others are kind, and a person who often plots against others will feel that others are plotting against him. .

This is called the "projection effect" in psychology, which refers to the tendency to attribute one's own characteristics to others. This is what we often call "judgment of others by oneself" - because you have certain characteristics, you think that others must have the same characteristics as you.

Or to put it the other way around: when you don’t have a certain concept yourself, you won’t think that others have such a concept.

3.

Let’s review the three misconceptions that prevent us from “making friends with people better than ourselves”: Misconception 1: Excellent people are arrogant and wrong Concept 2: Asking for help = causing trouble. Misconception 3: People who are better than me will not make friends with me. Now, I think you should understand that the problem may actually be with you - the root of these concepts. It’s because: This is what you think and do.

If you don’t believe me, you can try to think back. Have you ever had the experience of being “arrogant towards others”, “unwilling to help”, or “unwilling to make friends with people who are worse than you”? As the projection effect reveals, a person who is sincere to everyone will never have the concept of "arrogance", and a person who is willing to lend a helping hand to others will never think that "asking for help is giving to others." causing trouble".

And because "excellence" itself is a relative concept - there are many people in the world who are better than you, but there are also many people who are not as good as you - if you can lower your attitude and compare with If you make friends with people who are "bad" to you, you won't think that people who are better than you will be "unwilling to make friends with you"...

4.

When you go When you get in touch with those truly "excellent" people, you will find that they are not only approachable, but also willing to become friends with you. You will even find that they really want you to succeed from the bottom of their hearts, and they will continue to provide you with help during this process. Isn’t it incredible?

It’s no use just listening to me here. You really have to practice it, get in touch with “excellent” people, and make friends with them. In addition, I also know that it is not easy to change these deep-rooted ideas. But just like "failure" is actually "not successful at the moment", and "dislike" is just "not liking it at the moment", if there is no way to eliminate them directly from your brain at the beginning, you can try to use new concepts first. Replace the old one——

New concept one: Excellent people are friendly

New concept two: Asking for help ≠ causing trouble

New Concept 3: People who are better than me will definitely make friends with me

After you accept and practice the new concept, just like me, change the previous wrong and toxic concepts from Delete it from your dictionary.

Originally published in: How does Mr.V make friends with people who are better than himself?