The Hidden Obstacle That Stands Between You & True Love
Good news: It's totally within your control.
Jacob Lund / shutterstock.com Do you ever wonder if love is in the cards for you, or if you're destined to be alone?
Maybe your attitude about love is the real issue.
Dating can feel challenging for most people and unfortunately, your attitude might be making it more difficult to create lasting love. In fact, how you think about love and relationships is one of the biggest factors in your success.
Changing your mindset and your attitude can change your dating results.
Ask yourself where your negativity comes from. Have you had your heart broken and found it difficult to recover? Does it seem like you can't meet anyone that you're even interested in?
A negative attitude can be a cover for the hurt, sadness and loneliness you feel. You may be afraid to hope again because you don't want your heart broken all over again.
There is hope for you. You can change your attitude and get better results in your search for love.
Understanding how your mindset is affecting your search for love will give you the resources to start making some changes.
Five ways your attitude is getting in the way of finding real love
1. It colors the way you see the world
If you believe that most men are cheaters, or that most are only interested in sex and not a relationship, then you will see evidence that proves your conviction all around you. Conversely, if you believe that most people are kind, or that love is easy to find, you will have experiences meeting a lot of nice people, and find love easily.
The world appears to you as you believe it to be. One could also say that what you believe is true is, in fact, true for you.
Your beliefs determine your experience of the world around you. Sadly, most people believe the opposite — they think it is their beliefs that are shaped by the world.
As a newborn, you came into the world as the physical embodiment of the energy of love with zero blocks. You gave love freely to anyone who was around you, and you received love freely from anyone willing to give it.
Then you learned in your family of origin that love is conditional and you developed strategies that still affect you to this day.
Once you are grown, it takes an open mind or a powerful experience to change your beliefs about how the world operates. What’s interesting though is that human beings are actually designed this way.
Your mind is wired to find evidence for what you already believe and to reject evidence that contradicts your beliefs.
This wiring is what helps you to survive in a complex world. If you had to evaluate all new information from a clean slate (a completely unbiased mindset) then you wouldn’t be able to quickly make decisions and act on the evidence in front of you.
Because you have a negative attitude about love and relationships you are filtering for evidence to confirm your beliefs. There are plenty of relationship-ready people looking for love on a dating site or app. It is your negative beliefs about dating that block you from seeing them.
You have programmed your mind to find people who are a match to your belief system. Changing your beliefs will change your experiences online and offline.
We have guided our clients to have dramatic changes within a few weeks by providing a new experience for them. Everything from finding attractive available men in a tiny rural community, to finding an ideal match in a bustling metropolis later in life, and everything in between.
When you examine your belief system and poke holes in it the doorway to new experiences opens up for you allowing you to release the beliefs that don’t serve your desires.
Take some time to look at what is beneath your negative attitude.
Is it protection against heartbreak? Is there unresolved grief from a failed relationship? Or are you holding on to a belief system from your childhood that says you are unlovable?
Through introspection, you can determine which beliefs serve you toward your life goals, and which ones are keeping you from the experiences you desire.
2. It affects your actions
Your behavior is driven by your thoughts and your feelings. In fact, there is a system for how this works. It’s called the Think, Feel, Do Cycle.
First, you have a thought. This thought triggers an emotion. And emotion affects the actions you take, and whether or not you take an action.
When your thoughts are generally negative, they will trigger negative emotions. Your negative attitude will cause you to take fewer risks, stick to your familiar routines, and reject new opportunities.
All of this will lead you to have fewer opportunities to meet new people, make new connections, and have new experiences.
Your negative attitude is keeping you stuck, and your feeling stuck is contributing to your negative attitude. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that will take some willpower for you to break.
This never-ending cycle requires you to make an effort to change. You won’t magically wake up one day feeling more positive and suddenly feel differently about love. You will have to take new actions in order to feel better. And that may require you to pay more attention to your negative thoughts.
Look for reasons to stay positive. Practice affirmations. Contradict your negative thought patterns with evidence that what you wish to believe exists in the world. Notice love in all its many forms all around you.
A client of ours held tightly to the belief that in order to have love one would have to be lucky. So we decided that she would have to become a lucky person. One month later she won the Super Bowl pool at her office. Voila! She now had evidence that she was, in fact, a lucky person.
You have more control over your thoughts than you know. And when you take control of your thoughts you start to feel better, which has an effect throughout the Think, Feel, Do Cycle.
3. It can make you critical and judgemental
One of the most corrosive effects of a negative attitude is that it causes you to be more critical and judgmental of the world around you.
In our opinion, judgment is the No. 1 biggest block to love. Here’s why …
At its root all judgment is self-judgment. And when you are judgmental you are more inclined to project that judgment onto others.
This makes it difficult for any person you are dating (or potentially dating) to live up to your judgment and criticism. Constantly finding fault with those around you creates disconnection. And feeling disconnected is the beginning of the end of any relationship (no matter how hot, sexy, or kind they might be).
Instead, create a connection with your dates by focusing on their positive qualities. This doesn’t mean that you excuse bad behavior.
It does mean that you don’t sweat the small stuff. Go on some dates and just enjoy getting to know another human being with zero expectation of anything that may come after.
Breaking a pattern of judgment is just like breaking any habit — it requires a commitment and a strategy.
First off, it is important that you focus on progress, not perfection.
Start the day with a stretchy bracelet on one wrist and every time you catch yourself being negative or judgmental move the bracelet to the other wrist. Your goal is to not move the bracelet for 30 days straight.
We gave this assignment to a client or ours. She was shocked at how her negative voice was embedded in every part of her life leaving her feeling lonely and sad.
Within a few weeks of moving the bracelet back and forth, she found that all of her relationships were improving.
And what was most surprising for her was that she was still not “perfect” at ending the habit yet.
Your efforts toward change count more than we can explain here. You’ll have to try it out for yourself to experience it.
Most of all be kind, compassionate, and loving to yourself through this process.
4. It might cause you to reject new opportunities
When you have a negative attitude you are more likely to look for reasons to say, “No.” “No,” to a possible date. “No,” to giving someone a second chance. “No,” to an adventure.
Love requires that you risk. It is a risk to meet someone new. It’s an even bigger risk to fall in love with someone.
The myth of accidental love leaves you wishing that your ideal partner will see through all your negativity and love you despite it. It requires you to hope and wish that someone will counteract your negativity and bring happiness into your life.
It’s as if you’ve locked yourself into a fairytale tower expecting that the right person will find his way up there to rescue you and make your life better.
Ultimately, you are the only person responsible for your happiness. Only you can change your negative attitude.
It starts by saying “Yes” instead of “No.” Say “Yes” to a date with someone new. Say “Yes” to going to that party where you won’t know anyone.
Say “Yes” to a new adventure.
Take charge of your attitude by saying “Yes” to risk your heart. You’ll find that your path to love becomes clearer and your connection to others a lot stronger.
We had a client who was very resistant to dating apps because she had only bad experiences using them. Because she lived in a small town she really needed to use the tool that made meeting new men easy.
So we removed her blocks to dating apps. She is now married to the second man she met online who lived one town over from her.
You can decide that your ideal mate is looking for you just as you are looking for them. What would be different if this was your primary belief in your search for love?
5. It might repel the kind of partner you want
Negative people are not very fun to be around. They tend to bring the energy and mood down of everyone else.
If you are craving lasting love with someone who loves you for who you really are, you have to show up as who you really are.
You learned your negative attitude. It is not your true nature.
Do you want to stop being the dark cloud that rains on everyone else’s happiness?
Start by being curious about the people you meet. Curiosity is very attractive.
Practice being curious with strangers you meet at the grocery store. Or be curious about people in the line at your coffee shop. Be curious about that stranger you’re meeting for the first time.
Your curiosity will be a magnet to draw new people to you. Remember, every person you meet knows people you have not met yet. You never know where the introduction to your beloved will come from.
Taking time to examine your negative attitudes and making effort daily to shift to a more positive attitude will shift your experience exponentially. You don’t have to change everything all at once. Attempting to will only lead to frustration and failure. Instead, pick one item from your list and focus on it for a few weeks. You’ll be surprised at how quickly everything in your life will get better.
Orna and Matthew Walters are soulmate coaches who have been featured guest experts on Bravo’s "The Millionaire Matchmaker." They're the authors of the free ebook, "7 Steps To Soulmating," which can be found on their website.