How To Be Happy: Be the friend that you would like to meet

'Having recently moved to a place where I know no one, I am feeling lonely and would like to make new friends. Any tips on how I can make this easier?' B.

Step 1: Having a social network is vital for our well-being and happiness. Friends give our lives meaning, shared experience and the opportunity to encounter fresh perspectives. Those with a supportive hub of true friends – who forgive and forget, who love and laugh, who give as well as take – are truly fortunate. Because we value friendship so highly, making new friends can feel intimidating, even difficult. One of the ways we can create opportunities for friendships to flourish, even in the most unlikely places, is to see the potential for amity in everyone we meet.

Step 2: When starting a new life in a new place, we have a brilliant opportunity to create the sort of relationships we have always wanted for ourselves, unfettered by the constraints of our past. Imagine the sort of friends that you want in your life: people who care, who remember what is important to you, who cheer you up when you are down, who give their time freely, who include you in their plans and introduce you to people who can help. We all want friends such as these. So be that friend yourself. Bring to your relationships all the qualities that you want to receive and new friendships will blossom.

Step 3: Investing in relationships requires a degree of effort and risk-taking. Smile and say hello to as many people as you can each day; you can then practice with ease your well-versed social skills when you want to invest in a new friendship. If you feel shy, think of some useful phrases to get a conversation going. No one really minds small talk; we all understand that it is a gambit to open up a dialogue. Pursue any leads, however incongruous, if you sense the potential for a connection to arise. Our friendships should be wide and varied– the less homogeneous the better. Be tolerant, open-minded and non-judgmental and friendship will flow quite readily. Remember that most people like those who like them. Showing people that you genuinely care and are interested, thus allowing them to feel good about themselves, will always be a rewarding place to start a new alliance.