Being aware of and handling obstacles
No matter how motivated you are to change your situation and do things that increase your chances of meeting your goals, it can feel scary and hard to try new things and push yourself beyond your comfort zone. Depending on who you are and your experiences, there can be various obstacles on the way out of loneliness.
Thinking about your obstacles and difficulties doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you or that you carry full responsibility for your social situation. It may have arisen as a result of various circumstances that you had little or no power over. Still, it’s good to focus on things that you can do differently, because you have the most influence over your own actions.
Examples of obstacles include fear, worry or anxiety that arise when you challenge yourself and feel that you’re taking social or relational risks. Other obstacles might be disappointment and shame after repeated experiences of rejection despite attempts to connect with others. Being aware of these feelings and understanding why they arise in or before a situation can help you navigate wisely and choose to do something challenging despite the unpleasant feelings it provokes. This is about changing your relationship with difficult feelings, so your goals guide your actions rather than being driven by feelings that lead you away from what you truly want.
Avoidance behaviours
A common obstacle to increasing behaviours that can help break loneliness is what are called avoidance behaviours. These involve not doing things that feel hard and challenging, even when they are important to us. It’s a common human behaviour that helps us avoid emotional discomfort in the short term, because in the moment it’s tempting to refrain from doing something that triggers anxiety or feels uncomfortable.
The long-term consequences are more negative: we can become more passive, miss out on chances to change our situation in the long term, and continue to feel lonely. Avoidance also means that we don’t get the chance to challenge different negative thoughts that we carry around like “I’m uninteresting and nobody wants to talk to me” or “I won’t think of anything to say if I try to talk to someone.” A vicious circle can form where negative thoughts and feelings lead to behaviours that make it difficult to break loneliness.
Lack of motivation
Another reason you might not increase your social behaviours is low motivation. This can be due to different things, such as negative experiences, thoughts that effort is pointless, or low mood. A common trap is believing that you need to feel motivated before you can act. One risk of this mindset is passivity, because motivation isn’t always there when you need it. Instead, you need to do the things you planned regardless of motivation. Over time, doing more socially can increase motivation because it brings positive consequences.
How can you handle different obstacles?
A useful way to relate wisely to obstructive thoughts and feelings is to:
- Pause and sort what you’re experiencing. Put words to current thoughts, feelings and impulses to act.
- Remind yourself of your long-term goals. What do you want to move towards? Why is it important to you?
- Make a decision about how you want to act, no matter what your thoughts and feelings are saying in the moment.
Being anchored in your goals and why they matter can also protect you from self-blame and self-criticism. Instead of being driven by thoughts like “I’ll always be alone; nobody is interested in me”, you can focus on what you want to change: “I long for connection with others, so I’m willing to continue to keep daring to do different things that can lead to change over time.”
Sometimes we have too much time with our thoughts for our own good, and we get stuck in negative spirals. One way to break the spiral is to get moving in different ways, for example by going out, even if it’s only to the shops. Another way is to make negative thoughts explicit, and then come up with a more flexible, helpful thought that can motivate you to take action, and finally decide what you can do.
Example
|
Negative thought |
Helpful thought |
What I can do |
|
“It’s not worth trying to talk to someone from my course; it will only turn out bad.” |
“It feels hard talking to someone from my course, and it’s OK to feel that way. Hopefully, it will get easier over time.” |
Stop seeing conversations as a performance. Continue to talk to others when I get the chance. |
|
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- Which obstacles do you feel most affect your ability to take steps to change your loneliness?
- How can you handle uncomfortable feelings and negative thoughts as you try to challenge yourself with more or new social behaviours?
- Are there other obstacles to acting towards your goals that you may need to seek help to address?