how connection develops“I want to feel more connected” is a goal we can share and mean quite differently. One of us may want to know people well enough to stop and talk in the neighborhood. Another may already know plenty of people and want more time with one of them. The difference matters when we decide what to do.
In From Coach to Awakener, Robert Dilts describes six ways to define a goal. We can use Dilts’s framework to examine a few ways we might strive to feel more connected. Each brings a different part of that wish into focus. When one leaves a question unanswered, looking at the same wish another way can shift what's possible.
| Strategy | Example |
|---|---|
| Negating the problem | “I don't want to feel lonely.” |
| Defining the opposite | “I want to feel included.” |
| Using a role model | “I admire how my friend maintains meaningful relationships.” |
| Identifying desired qualities | “I want to express more curiosity, warmth, and appreciation.” |
| Establishing a generative outcome | “I want more opportunities to share enjoyable experiences and develop continuing relationships.” |
| Acting as if | “I regularly spend time with people I enjoy, contribute to things we do together, and look forward to seeing them again.” |
1. What do you want to stop?
“I don’t want to feel lonely” names an experience we want to change. Sometimes that’s the easiest part of a goal to put into words. Dilts asks us to try to avoid thinking about a blue elephant. To understand the instruction, we first have to picture the elephant. Asking “Do I feel less lonely?” keeps our attention on loneliness in much the same way. Even if the answer is yes, we still have to say what we would love to experience with other people.
2. What would the opposite look like?
If what I want to change is feeling excluded, I can name its opposite: “I want to feel included.” Dilts calls this approach polarity. It gives me a desired experience I can recognize. When someone invites me, I know they’ve included me. Yet if I keep looking at who invited me and who left me out, exclusion still shapes how I judge the experience. An invitation tells me there’s a place for me at the gathering. It tells me very little about the kind of connection I hope to find there.
3. Who shows you a way of connecting you admire?
Think of someone whose way of connecting with people you admire. It could be a friend who remembers where a conversation left off, or Oprah Winfrey asking a follow-up question that gives her guest room to say more. In either case, having someone in mind helps you give a broad wish a more precise meaning. “I want to feel more connected” might become “I want to listen closely enough to ask about something that matters to the person I’m with.”
Dilts points out that a role model gives us someone to observe and someone to measure ourselves against. With a friend, you may know firsthand how much it means when she follows up. Expecting yourself to remember everything she remembers could turn something you appreciate about her into an expectation you find hard to meet. With Oprah, there’s also the setting to consider. A question that opens up an interview might feel too personal in an everyday conversation.
What do you admire about the way this person connects, and how would you like to express it in your own relationships?
4. What quality would you like to bring?
Curiosity, warmth, and appreciation describe how we want to participate in a relationship. Each quality allows for many ways of expressing it, with room for us to respond to the particular person and occasion. That flexibility is the advantage Dilts sees in defining a goal through its key qualities.
We might know we value curiosity and still find it difficult to stay curious when someone says something we disagree with. Naming the quality clarifies what matters to us. Expressing it in that moment is a skill we may still want to develop.
5. Where do you already experience something you want more of?
“I want more opportunities to share enjoyable experiences and develop continuing relationships.” Dilts calls a goal generative when it extends a quality or capacity we already use. More can mean more occasions to be together. It can also mean bringing more of our curiosity, warmth, or creativity to the time we already share.
The phrase “continuing relationships” points to the strength of this approach. If an afternoon we enjoyed together grew into a friendship, we can look back on what each of us did to keep seeing one another. That experience gives us something to draw on. It also shows where the assumption behind a generative goal matters. We may already know how to enjoy an afternoon with someone and have little experience following up afterward. The pleasure we find in each other’s company is something we can build on. Extending an invitation to meet again may take practice.
6. If you already felt connected, how would you know?
Dilts calls this acting as if you have already reached your goal. For the wish “I want to feel more connected,” one answer is “I regularly spend time with people I enjoy, contribute to things we do together, and look forward to seeing them again.”
“I look forward to seeing them again” reveals something easy to miss while thinking about how to meet people. Even on a day we spend apart, the pleasure of anticipating the next visit is part of what makes this week feel connected. Imagining the goal fulfilled helps us discover which details matter to us. In a relationship, that picture gives us our own perspective. Finding out what another person would look forward to takes a conversation.
Dilts recommends looking at the same goal from all six perspectives. What you admire in someone else may help you name what you want. What you’ve already experienced may show you which part you know how to develop. Either discovery can shift what's possible by giving you a clearer sense of what feeling connected would mean in your own life.
Robert Dilts, From Coach to Awakener, pp. 39–41.