Develop social optimism

Social optimism involves seeing your experiences as providing opportunities to enhance your social skills. 

In other words, how can you develop socially from what happens to you?

Videos

Video

Coping with loneliness and isolation at university

In this video from Unite Students, Lois shares her tips on how you can cope with feeling lonely at university.

Video

Tips to help with loneliness

In this animation from their Mentally Healthy Universities programme, Mind share their tips on how to cope with loneliness as a student.

Video

The power of believing you can improve

Think about a problem that is slightly too hard for you to solve - are you not smart enough to solve it? Or have you just not solved it yet? Dr Carol Dweck discusses these two different viewpoints and offers tips on how to adopt a growth mindset.

Podcasts

Growing with the flow

Nayna Florence, a university student, takes on a big sister role on this podcast that talks you through all the challenges she faced at university, and how you can learn from her successes and mistakes.

Learn more

Further reading

Militant optimism: a state of mind that can help us find hope in dark times (The Conversation)

Next steps

Now you have explored resources to help with developing a stronger sense of social optimism, the next step is to complete our activities to help you set some goals.

Activities to develop optimism