Work, Home, Phone: How to Break the Loop

You wake up. You go to work. You come home. You pick up your phone. Then you do it again tomorrow.

The weekend comes and it looks the same, just with more phone.

If that's your week, look at it for a second. Who in that loop is new? Nobody. Who from your past is coming back into it? Nobody. That loop doesn't have a door in it. Nobody is walking into your life from your couch.

I know because I lived it. I moved to a city where I knew no one. Work, home, phone. That was my whole week.

School did this for you

Think about how you made friends in school. You didn't plan it. You saw the same guys in the same hallway, at the same lunch table, every day, for years. The schedule did the work.

Adult life stopped doing that. Nobody puts you in a room with the same guys every day anymore. So now you have to pick the room yourself.

Pick one place that repeats

One place where you'll see the same people again. That's the whole first step.

For me it was comedy. I kept going to the same mics, and I saw the same guys at least three times a week. Then church. Same people, every week.

For you it could be a gym class, a pickup game, a class, or a coffee shop you work from on the same mornings. It just has to put the same faces in front of you, at the same time, every week.

Then keep going back

The first time, you're a stranger. By the third time, people know your face. That's when talking gets easier, because you're not walking up to a stranger anymore.

This week, look at your week and find one hole in the loop. One night. Pick the place and go. Then go back next week.

You don't have to fix your whole social life this week. You just have to put a door in the loop.