5 tips for building meaningful connections
It’s much easier to feel disconnected from others than you might think. Even when you’re surrounded by people at work or at home, it can still feel as though something’s missing.
This sense of not quite clicking with others can be difficult to identify, but it’s still something many people experience at different points in life.
In fact, there are signs that it may be becoming more common. An article from Bupa (February 2026) found that, between January 2022 and December 2025, UK Google searches for the phrase “meet friends online free chat” increased sixfold.
Moreover, searches for “how to make new friends as an adult” and “random stranger chat” also doubled.
While it is easier than ever to stay in touch with others thanks to the internet and social media, actually forming meaningful relationships can still take time and effort.
Thankfully, there are small, practical things you can do to make a difference. Continue reading to discover five tips for building more meaningful connections.
1. Apply the “5-3-1” guideline
These days, it’s easy to feel as though you should be keeping up with everyone at all times by replying to messages, making plans, and staying in touch.
However, in reality, spreading yourself too thin can leave many relationships feeling surface-level rather than genuinely meaningful.
As such, you might want to practise the “5-3-1” guideline. This involves interacting with at least five people or groups each week, keeping at least three close relationships going at a time, and spending at least one hour a day, meaningfully connecting with other people in a social environment.
The guideline is exactly what is say, not hard and fast, so if you want to spend more time with more people, then go right ahead. Like with “10,000 steps a day” or “8 hours sleep a night”, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and this might not be right for everyone. What’s important is that you use the rule as a basis to allow you to improve your social health and wellness, because social health isn’t nice-to-have, it’s essential.
2. Take the time to listen and understand
It might sound obvious, but listening to other people is an important part of helping to connect with them.
In today’s life filled with distractions and other events, it might feel easy to drift through a conversation, only half-listening to what’s actually going on. But taking the time to listen, and to give the other person your full attention, also called Active Listening, is an important skill that can help you connect with others in a more meaningful way.
Active Listening is not just about hearing what the other person has to say, however. It also includes asking thoughtful, open-ended follow up questions to help further the conversation and reflecting back what you hear, allowing others to feel truly seen.
3. Try to share honestly
Opening up about your own thoughts can be a daunting thing, and yet it can be a powerful tool to use when trying to build and maintain meaningful connections. Take the time to be honest with each other, encouraging your friends and other people to share honestly in an environment safe from judgement.
Sharing honestly is not about letting loose everything all at once, start small, ask a question and after an honest response, give yours in turn, ask about the things that you, you or them, them. As you grow in your relationship you can explore more and more things together and you can find that mutual vulnerability can help turn casual friendships into close ones.
4. Find some common ground
It isn’t always required for every interest you have to align with someone else’s for you to have a good connection with them.
In fact, it’s often the smaller commonalities that help conversations flow more easily and can help you grow a connection with someone else.
This might be a shared interest, a similar experience, or even something as simple as enjoying the same café.
Being open to these small points of connection and actively engaging in them, can help you build a relationship with someone, and take pressure off any imagined need to have loads in common to have a good connection someone..
Once you’ve been able to make that connection on whatever common ground you have, it can also help to expand by being more open about other interests that you have that intersect or align with that shared interest, and trying out similar interests of the other person’s to enable to continue to grow and develop your connection. .
5. Be consistent and reliable
Another tip that sounds clear but is often overlooked is actually doing what you say you’ll do. Otherwise, you could end up weakening relationships over time through missed opportunities or not being there when someone needs you.
Being consistent and reliable in your interactions with another person can help build up a sense of confidence in your connections, and is an easy way for someone to come to trust you in other ways too.
And this doesn’t always have to be through big actions, sometimes small, consistent actions can make a big difference too. For example expressing gratitude regularly and utilising the same methods to communicate.
If someone feels they can rely on you, they might be more likely to feel comfortable investing their time and energy in the relationship.
Of course, things don’t always go to plan, and you may need to rearrange at times. Still, being mindful of how often this happens and making an effort to communicate clearly could help maintain that sense of trust.
Please note: This article is for general information only and does not constitute advice. The information is aimed at individuals only.
All information is correct at the time of writing and is subject to change in the future.
