Increasing your social behaviours
If you have too few or no social relationships and want to take steps towards changing your loneliness, part of the work is to gradually increase your social behaviours. To do this, it helps to make your long-term goals concrete. For example, “have one or two friends”. Goals are important because they give direction to what you’re striving for. Depending on your goals, there will be different things you need to do more or less of to move towards your desired situation.
Milestones along the way
Start by formulating a goal you can approach step by step. Once you have at least one goal, the next step is to break it down into a few smaller milestones that together lead you towards the long-term goal. If your goal is to get to know more people, one milestone may be to talk a little more with people in contexts you’re part of, such as those on your degree programme, in a leisure activity or a club that you’re part of. If you currently aren’t part of any or only a few social contexts where you meet people, a milestone could be joining an association, trying a hobby or signing up for a local volunteering activity.
Your milestones must be possible to start within 1–2 weeks. They shouldn’t feel so difficult to carry out that they’re impossible to reach, but they should involve you doing something unfamiliar and a little uncertain. Depending on your long-term goal, it may take a long time to get there. You’ll need to be patient and persistent and see milestones as part of a structured approach to increasing behaviours that lead to change in the long term.
Concrete behavioural goals
When you set milestones, frame them as things you can do, as behavioural goals. For example, “I’ll ask X if they want to go to the cinema with me next week.” Less helpful are emotional goals, which are about how you want to feel. An example of an emotional goal is “I want to feel good and less lonely.” The reason for this is that we have most control over what we do, which can, over time, change our situation and how we feel. We have less control over our feelings, and so emotional goals are harder to act on.
- What are your goals for your situation?
- What milestones can you break your goals into?
- Write down at least one goal and two milestones. Don’t forget to plan when you’ll carry out the milestones.
Example:
| Goal | Milestone, date |
| Get to know more people. |
WEEK 1 Talk more to others in the settings I’m in. Mon, Wed and Fri, ask the person sitting next to me a course question when I attend lectures. |
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WEEK 2 Be more personal with others in the settings I’m in. At least once a week, ask the person sitting next to me a personal question about the course. |
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WEEK 3 Join an association that I’m interested in. Find information online. Register for something within three weeks. |
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WEEK 4 Suggest lunch or a coffee with one or more people from my course. |
Fill in yoursel:
| Goal | Milestone, Date |