Belonging and Connection – why is this so hard and how can it be easier?

van Rooyen A1

1Confidence Hackers

Belonging and Connection have been big topics of international student research for ages, but somehow it still seems to escape us. So, what’s missing? and is there a ‘secret sauce’ to catapult us in the right direction?

From a human behaviour perspective, belonging and connection have special places.

CONNECTION is the fourth of the six core needs, and is only built in real and genuine ways after the lower-level needs are built first:

  1. certainty/safety
  2. change/uncertainty and
  3. significance (knowing that you’re intrinsically valuable).

With IS having very little certainty, LOTS of uncertainty and often feeling insignificant in the new and huge anonymous world of tertiary education, it’s no wonder that connection is such a challenge.

By constantly chasing connection without helping them build solid foundations in the base core needs, we are setting international students (and ourselves) up to fail.

Not BELONGING is one of the three universal fears (together with the fear of not being loved and the fear of being found out aka imposter syndrome), which is why the promise of ‘being part of the [cult] family’ can easily suck in vulnerable students.

By building, in resourceful, healthy and helpful ways, the skills to build certainty, manage change and know that they are valued, international students can move easily into the space of connection and away from toxic belonging.

Biography:

As a human behaviour expert and Chief Confidence Hacker, Anita has supported more than 10,000 IS using proven adult learning, positive psychology and behaviour-change models to accelerate wellbeing and self-leadership outcomes, all while retaining a sense of fun and adventure.

Anita has steered Confidence Hackers to being shortlisted for inclusion in the upcoming Federal Government Best Practise Guide for IS, having a Staff Wellbeing course endorsed by Monash University and being recognised by the IEAA through an Excellence in Innovation Award.

Anita previously spent 15 years with charities such as Landcare, the Victorian Innovation Centre and the Property Industry Foundation.