When was the last time you did something different with the people you do life with? Not dinner at the same restaurant. Not sitting beside each other while everyone looks at their phones. Not another meeting with the same agenda, or another rushed evening getting everyone where they need to go.
When was the last time you stepped outside your normal routine and simply enjoyed being with people?
Recently, our staff decided to do a team-building activity. We took a vote and landed on pickleball. I need to make something clear: there were no professional pickleball players among us.
Some of us needed help figuring out where to stand, and we had plenty of questions. Who serves? Where are we supposed to serve from? How exactly does the scoring work? There was a lot of learning as we went, and it was great.
I also discovered something about the people I work with every day: some of them are very competitive, and some are just not good at pickleball 😊 I won’t name names, but they did help me become a pickleball winner that day! But somewhere between figuring out the rules, missing shots, and debating scores, something else happened. We connected.
There were laughs, high-fives, jokes, and conversations that don’t normally happen within the office walls. These were the same people we work beside regularly, but we were experiencing one another differently.
It reminded me of something simple that we can easily forget: connection doesn’t always happen through conversation. Sometimes it happens through play, and sometimes changing the environment is exactly what our relationships need.
Connection Is an Important Part of Mental Health
We talk frequently about caring for our mental health through sleep, exercise, boundaries, and rest. All of that matters. But human connection matters too. We are relational people who need places where we feel seen, included, and known.
A sense of belonging provides emotional support during difficult seasons. Healthy relationships give us people to laugh with, celebrate with, and lean on when life becomes heavy.
Connection doesn’t mean having dozens of close friends or filling every free moment with activities. It means having relationships in which we experience some degree of belonging. And belonging can happen in surprisingly ordinary places: around a dinner table, on a walk, at church, at work, and apparently, on a pickleball court when half the group is still trying to remember the score.
Our Routines Can Keep Us Functioning Without Connecting
Routine is not bad. In fact, routine can be incredibly helpful for mental health. Predictability creates structure, and families and workplaces both need it. The problem comes when routine becomes the only way we experience one another.
Think about marriage. A couple can become incredibly efficient at running a household: who’s picking up the kids, what’s for dinner, did you pay that bill. All important conversations. But two people can successfully manage an entire household and still realize they haven’t really connected in weeks.
The same thing happens in families, where parents become drivers, cooks, and schedulers. It happens at work, too, where we know our coworkers through deadlines and responsibilities.
Then you put everyone somewhere completely different, and suddenly you discover another side of them. That’s part of what happened during our staff activity. The environment changed, and our interactions changed with it.
Why Doing Something Different Can Strengthen Relationships
Novel experiences interrupt our usual patterns. Outside our normal environment, we don’t automatically fall into our normal roles. The boss is suddenly learning how to serve. The quiet coworker turns out to be hilarious. Someone you thought was reserved becomes fiercely competitive.
That shift can be healthy. It gives us a reason to become curious about people we think we already know.
This applies far beyond coworkers. You may have been married for 20 years and still have things to discover about your spouse, or know your children better than anyone and still see something new when you experience them outside your usual routine. Sometimes relationships don’t need a serious conversation. Sometimes they just need a new experience.
Laughter Has a Place in Mental Health
One of my favorite parts of our outing was the laughter. We laughed at ourselves, we joked, we celebrated, and we gave high fives. None of that sounds profound, but maybe that’s the point.
Not every meaningful mental health experience has to feel serious. There is value in moments when nobody is trying to solve a problem, in being silly, in laughing until your stomach hurts, in setting down the roles you carry every day.
Adults need play too. Life can become incredibly serious, with bills, careers, parenting responsibilities, and an endless list of things demanding our attention. We can become so focused on handling life that we forget to enjoy the people we’re handling it with.
Belonging Is Built Through Small Moments
We sometimes imagine meaningful relationships being built through big conversations. But belonging is often created through small experiences: someone remembering what you told them, a shared joke, a high five, someone noticing you’re unusually quiet, hearing someone say, “Come play with us.”
These moments communicate something important. You belong here.
For someone struggling with loneliness or emotional exhaustion, feeling connected to others can matter tremendously. This doesn’t mean relationships eliminate anxiety, depression, or grief. They don’t. But there is a difference between going through something difficult alone and going through it while knowing someone is beside you.
Connection Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated or Expensive
Sometimes we make connection harder than it needs to be, thinking we need a vacation or an elaborate outing. We don’t. Pickleball reminded me of that.
The activity itself wasn’t what mattered most. What mattered was that we stepped outside our usual setting and experienced one another differently.
Maybe you’re a spouse whose date night has become another dinner spent discussing schedules and kids. Go bowling instead, or try pickleball even if neither of you knows what you’re doing. Maybe your conversations with your teenager have become mostly instructions and corrections. Get out of the house together, let them pick the destination, and let conversation happen naturally instead of starting with, “We need to talk.”
Or maybe it’s your workplace, where we often know only the professional version of one another. Appropriate connection reminds us that the people sitting beside us are people first.
Put Down the Pressure to Make It Meaningful
Don’t try so hard to make the moment meaningful that nobody can enjoy it. You don’t have to schedule an outing and announce, “Tonight we’re going to strengthen our emotional bonds.” Just go, be present, laugh, and let conversation happen.
Connection often develops sideways, while walking, cooking, or trying something new, like unsuccessfully attempting to remember how pickleball scoring works.
People often talk more freely when eye contact isn’t required and the conversation isn’t the entire point of the activity. Shared activity can create a softer doorway into connection.
Pay Attention to Who You Are Outside Your Roles
Who are you when you aren’t performing your usual role? At work, you’re an employee or a leader. At home, you may be Mom, Dad, the planner, or the problem-solver. But you’re also a person, and that person needs laughter, curiosity, rest, and belonging.
Stepping outside our routines helps us reconnect not only with other people, but with parts of ourselves buried underneath responsibility. You may remember that you’re funny, competitive, or adventurous, or terrible at pickleball, and perfectly capable of enjoying yourself anyway.
Mental Health Includes Making Room for Joy
Mental health isn’t only about addressing what hurts. It’s also about making room for what gives life meaning: relationships, purpose, belonging, laughter, rest, faith, and community.
There will be seasons when joy feels harder to find, but when life allows us opportunities for connection, we shouldn’t underestimate their value.
Sometimes caring for your mental health looks like a difficult conversation or a boundary. Sometimes it means asking for professional help. And sometimes it looks like grabbing a paddle and laughing with people you normally only see behind desks.
When Connection Feels Difficult
It’s also important to acknowledge that connection isn’t easy for everyone. Maybe you’ve been hurt in relationships, or social situations create anxiety. Maybe you’ve learned to protect yourself by keeping people at a distance, or you’re surrounded by people and still feel disconnected.
You don’t have to force yourself into becoming someone you’re not. Start small, with one safe person, one invitation.
If loneliness, anxiety, depression, or relationship difficulties are interfering with your daily life, reaching out for professional support is a sign of strength. Counseling can help you understand what makes connection difficult and build healthier relationships at a pace that feels manageable. We weren’t meant to carry everything alone.
Plan Something Outside Your Routine
So here’s my challenge. Think about the people you do life with: your spouse, your children, your friends, your coworkers, your church family. When was the last time you experienced one another somewhere outside your normal routine? If you can’t remember, maybe it’s time.
It doesn’t need to be elaborate. Choose something simple, let someone else pick, and put the phones away for a while. Be willing to be bad at something.
Laugh at yourself, cheer for someone else, and notice something about the people around you that you’ve never noticed before.
Our pickleball outing didn’t turn any of us into professional athletes, and I’m not sure it even turned us into good pickleball players. But we walked away knowing one another a little differently than we did when we arrived. And that mattered.
Between work, family, and everything else filling our calendars, it’s easy to forget something important: we don’t just need people to do life around. We need people to do life with. Sometimes all it takes to rediscover that connection is stepping outside the routine.
