#393 - Two Steps to Better Dating
Can you imagine having the relationship of your dreams? Spending the rest of your days with that one exceptional person, the one that you can talk to about anything and everything? The one who makes you feel alive. The one that enhances your life just as you enhance theirs. A relationship that is so strong that you can’t imagine life without them.
You know, a few lucky people will just fall into the right relationship. Others will find themselves in a great relationship by default. They chose wisely because their decision-making processes came naturally to them. For most of us though, our decision-making processes are flawed. We fall in love with a few great qualities. It might be looks, a job, a personality, certain abilities, or even chemistry.
These are all great and important characteristics but the sad fact is that none of these things alone will make for a quality long-term relationship. Dating can be an overwhelming process. The raging hormones of infatuation will almost always cause you to choose poorly.
Either you don’t recognize or choose to ignore many of the red flags of poor or mismatched relationships. Pretty soon you’ve spent months or even years in a relationship that just isn’t working for you.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that either one of you is a bad person. It just means you were only paying attention to what you wanted to see. You ended up settling for less than extraordinary. Ultimately, that relationship ends. You feel hurt, jaded about dating, and maybe even a bit foolish for not seeing the red flags that your friends and family saw.
And, you’re alone again. Maybe you’ve never had the loving relationship you’ve been looking for. Maybe you’re a widow or widower and have lost the love of your life and wonder if you can have a special someone in your life again.
Maybe you already know exactly what you want but family and friends tell you that you’re too picky! Or maybe based on past experience you don’t believe that you deserve everything you want in a relationship. You’re told you’re being unrealistic.
I’m here to tell you that you CAN have everything you want in your next relationship. The question is, are you willing to invest the time in yourself to learn some simple techniques that will propel you dating life to the next level?
The first step is to believe in yourself. And honestly, for many people, this is a really hard thing to do. Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic wand to wave over you to change that. But there are steps you can take to change that. One that I highly recommend is to start learning about NLP…Neuro Linguistic Programing.
NLP is a process that helps you change how you see yourself, how you speak to yourself, and helps you recognize the possibilities in your life. There are many books on the process but one of the best that I’ve found is by Tony Robbins, the world-renowned life coach and motivational speaker, Awaken the Giant Within. He helps you rewrite the stories that you tell yourself in such a way that you regain your personal power. Click on the book title for more information.
The second step is to become absolutely clear about what you want in your next relationship (and what you don’t want.) You do this by creating your own Must Have and Deal Breaker lists. Both of these lists need to be non-negotiable. That means if you meet someone that has one or more of your Deal Breakers or is missing one or more of your Must Haves, a relationship with them is a non-starter. The next word out of your mouth should be “Next!”
This may sound harsh, maybe even cold and calculating and you’d be right. But this is exactly what it takes to keep from becoming a divorce statistic. If you ignore this step in any way, you’re setting yourself up a sub-par relationship at best. You can’t compromise your way into an extraordinary relationship. You can’t manipulate or change someone to be the partner you fantasize they could be.
When you understand and implement these very basic fundamentals of dating and relationships, you’re 80% of the way to finding your soul mate. If you don’t, you can count on being numbered among the divorce statistics I listed above or doomed to remain single.
I’m here to help you and have a number of resources to help you improve your dating life. When you’re ready, just reach out and we can schedule a Discovery Call to see what options are best for you.
In the meantime, happy dating.