This past week, my friend George moved into a brand new house with his bride of two weeks. George and his new wife are blissful, looking forward to a life together of dancing, cooking on the grill, spending time with their kids and grandchildren, and loving each other. Just a little over a year ago, George was coming out of a long-term dating relationship that didn’t work out. And just three years before that, he was recovering from the death of his beloved first wife of cancer after more than thirty years of marriage. George has been through a lot. […]
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Sheila complained often to her friends, “I don’t have time to date! Between my career, my friendships, and my family obligations, there’s nothing left over.” She isn’t the only one with this battle cry. Like most singles, Sheila has filled every available minute of her life with activity. Not a bad thing, but it begs the next question. What are your life priorities? If you really want a relationship, want to be with a soul mate, maybe happily married with children, then you must arrange your life priorities to allow it to happen. The following exercise is valuable to do on a […]
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Does money buy happiness? Most of us have heard all of our lives that it doesn’t. Now, research shows us that it’s true – money doesn’t buy long-term happiness. It turns out that gaining large sums of money is similar to taking drugs – it temporarily stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain. But in the long run, our brains return to “set point,” the level of general life happiness that we had before the windfall. What is happiness? If the definition of happiness is that temporary buzz we get when something unexpectedly wonderful happens (financial windfall, new car, falling in love, new […]
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If you found yourself in the blogs on love addiction, take heart! It is possible to recover and find a much healthier path in life. Here’s a basic checklist for recovery: Get real and get serious about your life: acknowledge that you have a problem with relationships Do an inventory of past relationships and look for the common denominator: you List the dysfunctional behaviors that consumed you in the past: trying to fix someone else’s life; trying to change somone; loss of focus on your own well being The path to recovery from love addiction begins with a commitment: To yourself […]
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Neurotic daters, take heart! It is possible to change this pattern and to reap the rewards of a much more fulfilling life as a single while you search for that someone special. The very first step is to make the rock-solid commitment to be self-caring first, other-caring second. Like the flight attendant tells you on the plane, put on your oxygen mask first, then help the person next to you. Second, before you date anyone new, put together your vision statement and clarify what you’re looking for in a person and in a relationship. [See Be Your Own Dating Service […]
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Do you blame yourself for whatever goes wrong in your relationships? No matter what happens, do you second-guess yourself, worry that you said or did the wrong things and caused the other person to leave, break up, or cheat? If so, you may be a neurotic dater. What does that mean? A neurotic dater puts far too much focus on doing and saying the right things in order to create a certain result. It’s illogical, but the mind-set goes something like this: “If I can just be good enough, smart enough, good-looking enough, and say just the right things, then […]
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Understading and awareness are powerful first steps necessary for any life change. But if you stop there, so does your life. Action moves things forward; action creates real change. Nothing, even the deepest levels of understanding and awarness, substitutes for action. If you’re not happy with your dating life, get into action. Use these SinglesCoach forums to educate yourself, read my books, listen to my audio tapes, then put what you learn into real world action. If the goal is a great relationship, then the action is get in the game! That means you must actively search for and participate […]
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Would you like to have a higher EIQ? If so, you can, but it is a process over time that requires your commitment to growth. If you languish in your comfort zone, you won’t grow and your EIQ will not grow. If you want to develop your EIQ, do the thing that stretches you rather than the thing that feels safe and comfortable. If you have an opportunity to meet new people, jump all over it. Make yourself walk up to strangers and engage in a conversation. Pay attention to the social nuances that are taking place all around you. Notice the person […]
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You’re sitting at Starbucks. Across from you is an attractive person. You’re engaged in the conversation. Now what? If you’re dating smart, you’re focused on more than the words being spoken, more than the person’s face, hair, body, and muscle tone. If you’re dating smart, you’re focusing on what’s not being said. You’re listing carefully, paying attention to the emotional undertones. In short, you’re using your Emotional I.Q. so that you make a wise choice about going forward. How’s your EIQ (emotional intelligence quotient)? If you haven’t heard the term, or if you don’t know what it means, Daniel Goleman […]
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You haven’t had a date in three years. You haven’t attended a party or other social event in two years. You work, go home, watch television or spend time on the computer, go to sleep, get up the next day and do it all over again. In short, you’re in the singles rut. A friend persuades you to go out and socialize at some event over the weekend. As you get dressed, your heart starts racing and your anxiety climbs. You are in the Panic Zone – terrified of putting yourself out there again. But in the singles rut, you […]
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What in your life is blocking you from love? Keri thought she was doing everything possible to attract a good man into her life, but somehow it wasn’t happening. Then she asked a coach to help her discover what wasn’t working. Acting on a hunch, the coach asked to see her home and what she found illuminated the situation. Keri’s bedroom looked like that of a teenage girl – all frills, flowers, and even stuffed animals. Her closet was stuffed to the hilt with no room for a guy to hang his clothes there. The rest of her home exactly mirrored […]
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How does love show up in your life now? Are you lonely, searching for a soul mate and instead finding losers and misfits? Are you anxious for that moment of letting go, breathing deeply, and finally feeling loved? Are you discouraged by the number of truly bad dates you’ve had? Are you discouraged by the lack of dates? If this is you, there’s good news and bad news ahead for you. First, the bad news. The bad news is that you are creating your situation. That’s right – whatever is happening now in your love life is a result of all the […]
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Ever hear the expression “practice makes perfect?” Well, it’s not true. Only perfect practice makes perfect. Champion athletes often use visualization processes in which they see themselves making the perfect shot or scoring the touchdown. They visualize themselves practicing perfectly, feel the success of the moment, and thus actually carve out neural pathways for success. That makes it much easier when in the game to re-enact what was perfectly practiced mentally. Sometimes people ask “why does it matter if I do something today that’s not in my best interest long-term, as long as it feels good and doesn’t hurt anyone?” […]
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If you read the last post – Boredom and Relationships – and saw your partner(s), you may be on the flip side of this dynamic. Instead of being the instigator of drama, you choose people who will instigate it for you. Guess what? You are just as invested in drama as your low-boredom-threshhold partner. But you will have difficulty seeing this since you’ve cleverly hidden it in the other person’s behavior. Stable relationships are not necessarily exciting relationships – not once you get past the early enchantment stage. If you tend to date people who keep things stirred up, who […]
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In a word – FEAR. Someone once said that fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. In our minds, there are all kinds of reasons to settle for the crumbs with which we’ve been presented, all of them false: I’ve been single a long time and this is the best opportunity I’ve had My friends say I’m being too picky My family says I’m being too picky I’m getting older every day and I don’t know how many more opportunities I’ll get It isn’t that bad It’s better than nothing This may be the last train to come through the […]
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Instead of crumbs, hold out for the banquet – someone who’s emotionally mature and stable, and whose behavior reflects it: On time for dates, ready to go! Excited and enthusiastic about being with you! Eager to share and be emotionally vulnerable; i.e., sharing life dreams, values, and goals Drinks socially or not at all; no drugs Responsible in life – has a good job, saves money, lives within means Wants what you want – a loving relationship leading to a lifelong commitment Makes an investment in pursuing a relationship with you! Now the tough question: are YOU a banquet for someone […]
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Explanatory thought: how do you explain the world and people around you to yourself? As the events of our lives unfold, they don’t happen in a vacuum. We are wired as thinking beings to interpret those events in some way in order to make sense of our lives. One of the things we tend to reflect on the most is relationships. Here’s the rub – the kind of explanatory thought we have about past relationships tends to strongly effect how successful we are in our future relationships. Negative explanatory thought on relationships - or “stinking thinking” – sounds something like this. “Well, […]
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If the following checklist looks familiar to you, you may be a drama junkie. In essence, it means that you are drawn to people and situations that get your adrenaline flowing both in the positive and the negative. The positive highs in relationships are primarily associated with the earliest enchantment phase of love, so those feelings are not sustainable at a high level over time. Once the initial enchantment period fades, the drama junkie has to find other ways to get his or her “fix.” The following are examples, behavior patterns, that indicate you or someone you love may have this issue: Inability […]
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Harry dates women with problems, big problems. Katie was bulemic and had a drinking problem. He tried to help her in every way possible, but she dumped him for another guy after eight months. Then there was Melinda, who lost her job but maintained her lifestyle through credit card debt. After bailing her out multiple times financially, thinking they were in a committed relationship, he was stunned to see her at a bar one night hanging all over some other guy. That night, the text messages and phone calls flew furiously for hours, many of them abusive exchanges that did a […]
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David, a client of mine years ago, once confessed to me that he’d reviewed the profiles of over 250 women and none of them measured up. I asked, “Are you saying that out of 250 women you can’t identify even one you would be willing to ask to meet you for a cup of coffee?” David’s quest for perfection was leading him down a blind alley. The problem was his filter, the list of criteria through which he ran women in his mind. David was looking for a woman with no flaws, no imperfections, no humanity. David didn’t realize that […]
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After two or three bad relationships, your heart may seize up in fear. “Is it worth the risk of getting hurt again?” you wonder. You are having perfectly normal feelings in response to pain. When love goes wrong, you need time for healing. You may lose trust in yourself; the loss of faith in your own ability to make good choices can leave you shaken. Think of your heart like a broken leg. You would never go skiing with a cast on your leg! You wouldn’t be able to navigate the slopes and if you fell again, you might have […]
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Anita couldn’t believe what was happening. The geeky guy with the pocket protector was standing in front of her chattering animatedly. She felt trapped, unable to break away because of the voice inside her that kept saying, “it’s rude to just walk away.” Meanwhile, the totally hot guy she’d had her eye on earlier was getting away. She was smiling and her head was nodding but inside, she was seething. Anita suffers from Too Nice Syndrome. Getting trapped in a conversation with someone you don’t like is one of the risks you take as a single person, but it doesn’t have to […]
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“I don’t really want a relationship at this point in my life,” Ashley declared firmly. “I’m happy with my career and my friends. I just re-decorated my house and it’s perfect. I’m not even sure I have time for a serious relationship.” Like many singles, Ashley really believes what she’s saying. But as soon as the words leave her mouth, it’s as if the universe takes it on like a dare. The truth is that almost all of us want a relationship with someone special. What we don’t want is another bad relationship, another life drama that sucks our energy, […]
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If the recent posts about whether or not you’re a narcissistic dater did not resonate for you – you don’t see yourself that way – they might resonate in terms of your choices of dating partners. Do you have a pattern of choosing people who are self-absorbed, self-focused, and unable to really give emotionally? Do you fall for charm and charisma only to find later that it’s all about them? If so, your chooser is definitely broken, but it can be fixed. Following are a handful of reasons you might be going for the narcissist instead of the giver: You […]
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Are you a Narcissistic Dater like Justin or Shelly? This personal inventory will help you gain insight and take corrective action if you are. Take a few minutes and go through these questions, writing down your answers. Be as honest as you possibly can – the information you’ll gain is for your own development and growth. Think of yourself in dating situations as context for your answers. When I’m dating someone, I am aware of the other person’s emotional needs and can clearly articulate them: a. Most of the time, b. Some of the time, or c. Almost never. When […]
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