While these relationships can fulfill you in their own right, with some effort, you can turn a casual acquaintance into a true friend. The first step is to open up a little about yourself. Friendships are characterized by intimacy. So, try sharing something a little bit more personal than you would normally. Do they seem interested? Do they reciprocate by disclosing something about themselves?
Invite a casual acquaintance out for a drink or to a movie. Lots of other people feel just as uncomfortable about reaching out and making new friends as you do. Be the one to break the ice. Take the first step and reach out to a neighbor or work colleague, for example—they will thank you later.
Carpool to work. Many companies offer carpool programs. Spending regular time together is a great way to get to know others better and offers the opportunity for uninterrupted and deeper conversation.
Track down old friends via social media. Here are some common obstacles—and how you can overcome them. Developing and maintaining friendships takes time and effort, but even with a packed schedule, you can find ways to make the time for friends. Put it on your calendar. Schedule time for your friends just as you would for errands. Make it automatic with a weekly or monthly standing appointment. Or simply make sure that you never leave a get-together without setting the next date.
Mix business and pleasure. Figure out a way to combine your socializing with activities that you have to do anyway.
These could include going to the gym, getting a pedicure, or shopping. Errands create an opportunity to spend time together while still being productive. Group it. Making new friends means putting yourself out there, and that can be scary. But by working with the right therapist, you can explore ways to build trust in existing and future friendships.
For more general insecurities or a fear of rejection, it helps to evaluate your attitude. These fears get in the way of making satisfying connections and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody likes to be rejected, but there are healthy ways to handle it:.
Making a new friend is just the beginning of the journey. Friendships take time to form and even more time to deepen, so you need to nurture that new connection. Your friend may have new exercise ideas. Along the way, you might learn new skills — refine your running style, for example — or you could learn a whole new sport or activity. Variety is the key to sticking with your exercise plan. Mix it up. There are plenty of ways to find an exercise partner.
Here are a few suggestions to get the ball rolling. Start with friends and family who live nearby, or maybe your neighbour or a work colleague. Suggest a daily or weekly workout date, and make the commitment, helping each other along the way to achieve goals.
Walking groups are easy to find, or to start up from scratch. Check out the Heart Foundation Walking website for everything you need to know to get started.
What about starting up a lunchtime walking group at work? You can also find walks in your local area and throughout Victoria on the Victoria Walks website. Get fit and do a good deed at the same time while taking part in a charity event.
Many charities host walks, runs and triathlons to raise money and awareness for their causes. Instead, it is largely unconscious. Beneath your awareness, your brain is constantly picking up on cues from the people around you to inform your behaviour.
And the consequences can be serious. It is now well accepted that our personal sense of self is derived from other people. I see things first through my lens as an academic. These are called social norms. And while these norms are usually stable, some interesting things happen if just one person in the associated group acts out of character.
Environmental options like cycling are popular among students - but hearing a single dissenting voice can alter your perceptions of the social norm Credit: Getty Images. Consider the following study, which found that people were likely to change their opinion on green travel if they found out their peers were acting hypocritically. The students from Humboldt State University reside in a small, socially liberal town in northern California which takes pride in its environmental credentials.
The students there are largely very environmentally conscious, too. After listening to an interview with a student at the university who stressed the importance of walking or cycling short distances rather than taking a car, and then later admitting to driving to the interview, the participants were asked about their own environmental views.
They did this while sat next to an actor. The actor took the role of either a third student wearing a university sweatshirt, or a professional in smart clothing. When the hypocrisy of the interviewee was revealed, the actor either made a negative remark about their behaviour or stayed quiet. How the participants judged the importance of walking or cycling short distances was dependent on who they listened to the interview with, and how that person reacted.
When sat with someone they thought was another student, and who shared their environmental values, the participants reiterated the importance of cycling. An outsider who commented on the hypocrisy of the interviewee elicited the strongest environmental feelings in the participants.
Birnbaum says. Also, when you or your friend are the victor, you can expect support and congratulations. The occasional Fitbit step challenge probably won't harm your friendship.
But if you find that you're competing with your friend more often than not, it can cause a rift in your relationship. It negatively impacts friendship because these types of friendships do not make one feel supported and appreciated.
Instead, there is a concern that you need to be on edge for the next great thing your friend does and be able to match it. In the long term it leaves people feeling exhausted and stressed in exchanges with this dynamic. Even if the competition you're having with a friend centers around a positive change for both of you for example, a fitness challenge , it can enter into harmful territory if one friend starts to feel jealous toward the other's success — to the point where outdoing the friend becomes more important to them than the friend achieving his or her goals.
Back to our fitness example: Say your friend logged more steps than you did — for the third week in a row. Instead of feeling proud of him or her for exceeding their weekly goal, you start to spew reasons why you weren't able to hit that same mark.
And, just to make sure you come out on top, you call out the obligations your friend wasn't up against that you know are a point of contention — like pointing out to the single friend who won the challenge that you've been too busy wedding planning to hit the gym as much as you would have liked.
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