I know it’s easy for me to say “Relax and Enjoy the Process” cos I’m on the other side but don’t forget I wasn’t married when I was 20! I too had a LONG, painful, irritating, depressing process but equally, I had a hell of a lot of fun too.
Key to successful dating is to have fun and enjoy it. Otherwise, really, what’s the point? When you’re going on a number of rubbish dates, I get that you’re not going to feel like this but if you can date more ‘emotionally efficiently’ you will lessen the negative affects on your self esteem. Keeping your self esteem in check is essential.
Here’s a few things you can do to make the process that little bit easier:
- Don’t expect to marry every single person you date. A note on expectation. Rather than planning your babies names before you’ve even taken the first sip on your date, plan to just enjoy the date. To be your best self on the date and expect that there’s a 50-50 chance that it works out or not. And either way is ok. The sky won’t fall in and there will be other people you can meet.
- Stress less about past failed dates. As much as dating is about connection, it’s not always the right time for either person to be dating but unless you’re doing self awareness work, you likely won’t realise this. If you’ve been in perpetual negative thought patterns for some time like “I’ll never meet someone” “ No one will ever want me” etc then you should step away from dating, work on yourself and come back to the game when you’ve addressed your issues.
- Be prepared to make amendments to that list. The list of wants. I’m all for the list, the vision board and manifestation but you also need to be prepared to modify it as you grow as a person both literally through age and within yourself. For example, dating in your 20’s probably doesn’t include vetoing someone with a kid but in your 30’s and 40’s you will need to consider your feelings on this as it’s much more likely people will come with kids at this age. I’m not saying you have to date people with kids if you don’t want to but just be aware that your pool of dateables will change at different times in your life.
- The fine line between being too fussy and settling. Yep I said it. Stop being too fussy and don’t feel like settling is settling for something you don’t deserve. At some point (and this point is probably more directed at men but women can also relate) your fussiness is bordering on trying to find a person that doesn’t exist! Consider being with someone who makes you feel xx% happy and then together you both build the rest of that happy.
- Stop judging! It takes a good amount of time to really get to know someone and even then, you’ll only know a certain amount of them and then you’ve got the long game of relationships where you learn more over years, the person changes according to different stages of life they’re in and things happening to them and you either go with it or walk away. But before you even get here, you need to manage your judgment. Remember when dating like-minded people i.e people who want to date for the possibility of a relationship, being open to that person will give you a better chance of really knowing them and them knowing you. You wouldn’t like to be judged so don’t do it to others. Are you really that bloody perfect that you have the right and arrogance to judge another person?!
Raise your self awareness, get to know you better, work on yourself and then approach dating again. You can’t be excellent at everything all at the same time. Sometimes, your career needs most attention, your health, your other relationships and that’s ok. You’re not slowing the process of meeting someone else, you’re actually increasing your chances because you’re finding and establishing YOUR happy, finding YOUR best self so that when that person comes along, it’s easy, fun and a much more informed process than before.
Hire me as your Love Coach and I’ll get you results. You can even have me as your wing woman to help with the actual process. Whatever I can do to help, I will. I love love. I didn’t have it ‘easy’ but I did make sure I had more fun than sad times and taking care of myself was what helped me get to meet my Mr.
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