Positive Reinforcement
I had brunch with a friend who I haven’t seen in some time today. I detailed by recent dating history, and during one particular story said, “I screwed that up!” She quickly interrupted me and said, “You didn’t screw it up, say things didn’t work out!” It’s the same result, different perspective.
It seems the unhappier you are, the more single you become. Every act, mistake, and reasons for being single is magnified 100%. While there are many reasons for being single, they’re not aways our fault. Sometimes we’ve met the wrong person, or they weren’t ready for a relationship. To improve our dating chances, there’s only two things we can work out, ourselves and our attitude. Both rely on the other to survive.
Working on yourself seems to be the easiest of the two tasks. A change of clothes, a new look look or an update a profile definitely help. Working on your attitude is a tougher task. It usually requires having to change how you perceive things, keeping a positive outlook and maintaining a sense of discipline to not beat yourself up too much. This type of change requires more than just a spit shine, it has to deal with goals, habits, and health.
One aspect to dating, somewhat touched upon, is our mental health. Whether we are truly happy with ourselves. Many determine happiness based on whether they are with another person; others determine it based on the quality of their life. I believe the latter is the best approach. I tend to dip into the self-loathing, self-depreciating deep end of the pool. Instead, I should be focusing on the improvement and possibilities, the “it didn’t wok out” opposed to the “I screwed up!” (No worries, this is a 2010 goal!) This is often the long term, heard to deal aspect of dating. There isn’t a happy pill regardless of what your doctor, or dealer, tells you. This is something that burns within each person.
Every so often, I find myself needing to revisit two books, both have helped with my own attitudes and approach to dating. The core messages from these books are often used in several popular male dating books. They are “First Things First” by Steven Covey, and “What Should I Do With My Life?” by Po Bronson. These aren’t dating books, but time management and life focused books. They deal with many of the core issues that, I believe, prevents us from achieving our goals.
It’s important to maintain a happy, positive outlook on dating. As someone told me in an e-mail, “Dating in New York is like eating glass and expecting your mouth not to get cut.” Sure it’s hard, but no one ever wants to date a sourpuss.
Image Credit: Thomas Hawk on Flickr
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Nerdy as this may be, I think Stephen Covey is making me more dateable with every book. :D
Great post .. It’s all about changing ones attitude and perspective as you’ve rightly put it. Lately it seems all I get asked is ‘when are you getting married – or why don’t you have a boyfriend’ .. and my answer is quite simple ‘when the right person comes along I’ll get married’ and ‘haven’t met anyone I want to call my boyfriend’.
Another thing I noticed is that if the people around you give off negativity, then it tends to rub off and thus result in a negative energies / perspectives and we end up beating ourselves over it.
So in 2010 – surround yourself with people who are positive about themselves, positive about you and that’s when the small changes will magnify themselves :)
Agree with Dazediva. The worst is everybody thinks that I am too picky on calling somebody my bf. But the thing is, guys are not exactly lining up to ask me to be my bf!!!