As a mother, I’ve endured my fair share of clichéd phrases about “finding your tribe.” At first, it was easy to fall into the hype. How amazing would it be to find a group of mothers that shared all my beliefs in child rearing?! With this tribe of women marching beside me, we could conquer the world, one batch of homemade almond milk at a time. Now … where do I find these ladies? Facebook? La Leche League? Target? Are they currently hanging out without me? I wonder if they even know I exist.

Humans are social creatures. We thrive in communities. Finding our tribe seems magically delicious. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: While there may very well be a tribe out there for you, you can by no means find it. The only way into one of those tribes is to be a part of one of those tribes.

We have an unbelievable number of people in our lives. If we compile our friends on Facebook, our connections on LinkedIn, and the email addresses and phone numbers in our contact lists, we’d likely begin to realize that we are already part of a tribe. We’re probably parts of many.

It takes a village.

My tribe – or as I like to call them, my village – isn’t a group of people that exists in a silo and always supports and enables me no matter what. My village is a group of imperfect individuals who have different opinions. We all have a past. And most important, we all made the conscious decision to have a future. At times I lean on certain parts of my village, and at times they lean on me. We didn’t learn to trust each other without sharing some confidences. But I want to be clear, I did not find this village. I became a part of this village.

The only way to find good connections is to be a good connection. If you’re struggling personally or professionally to find your tribe, take a step back and look at the village that’s already around you. Reach out to some of the folks in that village.

 You might be surprised at what happens next.