So it’s over.
December. Parties. Christmas. Those occasions when single people have to grin and try impeccably hard to ignore all the happy couples around them.
Then, when January comes, you think about your 6-month goals:
- Lose weight
- Get career sorted
- Find a relationship (!!)
In fact, so strong is the desire to get coupled up after the holidays, that Tinder expects it’s biggest traffic ever to occur THIS Sunday. I don’t know if that’s a cause for excitement or indicative of some kind of mass desperation.
But let’s pull back a second.
Is “finding a relationship” really a worthy goal to have for 2017?
On the one hand, I’m all for the idea of prioritising dating more, especially if you’re at a stage in your life when you now want to focus on romantic relationships and take them more seriously.
But what if you don’t meet the right person in 6 months, or even a year? What if you get to July and you’re dating a guy who seems ok but isn’t really someone you could imagine spending your life with? Should you just sleepwalk into relationship anyway so that you can tick the box and say “I did it!”, at the end of 6 months?
I hope not.
I hope we can agree that would be insane. Yet think of how many people rush into relationships, motivated purely by the idea that being able to say “I have a boyfriend” is some kind of symbol of romantic success.
What Really Gets The Guy: Focus On Strategy, Not Outcome
Here’s the truth: Just seeking to “find a relationship” this year will lead you down a bad path.
It leads to desperation, bad choices, and time-wasted on bad guys – it’s as though your throwing random darts at a board blindfolded and hoping you’ll eventually hit a bullseye.
The smarter approach to finding love is to focus on strategy rather than outcome.
The outcome is: Find a relationship.
But that’s not the truth. The truth is you want a fulfilling relationship, where you bring your best to the table and have a loving partner who wants to do the same for you.
For this, your strategy should be: Put yourself in the best position to attract someone amazing.
This is a much more specific and empowering focus than just “find a relationship”.
Finding a relationship could just mean saying “yes” to absolutely any guy who hits you up on Tinder this week. But focusing on the strategy instead makes you take the RIGHT kind of actions that give you options and make you more desirable to the man you actually want.
Maybe your strategy involves:
- Leaving your house more often.
- Having plans on a Friday night with single friends (so that you actually meet new people).
- Taking care of your health and your body so you feel great.
- Ditching that “friends with benefits” guy who keeps messing you around and is holding you back from meeting a man who sees you as a goddess.
- Flirting more and getting comfortable with being fun and playful with the men you meet.
- Starting more conversations and being able to “drop your handkerchief” so that more men notice you.
- Being less needy and working on your self-esteem so you don’t scare guys away (more about that in this FREE guide).
These are all the concrete behaviours that make your dating life dramatically better, so that you can make romantic choices from a position of strength.
Just having the goal to “find a relationship” leads to the shortcut, the quick fix, the lame matchmaker who fixes you up with some boring guy you have to pretend to like as you watch him stuffing a hamburger into his face.
Focusing on the goal makes you think, “Ugh. How am I going to do that?” Focusing on a strategy is what makes you say: “This is fun! I wonder what else I could do…”.
So start today: Look at your behaviours and think about what you need to adapt to be in the best position to attract an amazing guy.
Build a life you love living, you’ll always be ready for when that amazing guy comes along who wants to be a part of it.
Feels so wise! I appreciate the holistic way that you guys coach women regarding their lovelife! It’s lovely, empowering, and keeping us focused without being boring. You give us guidelines that are flexible enough to fit our own creativity and be customized so we can bring our desires to life. I’m so glad for what you do. Thank you!!!
Thank you so much Stephen! This is just what I needed to hear.
I liked this part: “On the one hand, I’m all for the idea of prioritising dating more, especially if you’re at a stage in your life when you now want to focus on romantic relationships and take them more seriously.”
And what if someone is not ready for marriage just yet? Should they seek a boyfriend and date anyone at this stage when they know they are not willing to make a lifelong commitment yet, but they want to get married at some point in the future?
I would really be curious to see Steve’s point on this, because most material on this blog is intended for women who are ready for lifelong commitment and seeking it. What about the rest of us who are still too yound and not ready to make a family just yet?
I would love to ready Steve’s opinion on this!
Agreed! Some men will just soak up the positive energy.
Find out in the first 20 seconds. Or sooner
Like if you’re in the same apartment complex, say do you and your wife live close to the building? This is great coffee / gym/ wherever you run into him!
You can also ask if he and his girlfriend checked out the movie etc
Rather than asking if he’s single, start at wife. I once asked a guy if he had a girlfriend and it was NO. Turned out he was married.
Most men are shabby. This is reality and as long as there are female counterparts with low self esteem who pander to their every need – the other women will fail as well. We need to uplift one another and stick up to such men and teach them that such behavior makes them no better than my dog who humps any random dog on basal instinct.
I will add one thing and it is that we are all perfect. Our internal worth does not change (increase OR decrease) based on how much attention we do or don’t get, how much money we have or don’t have, or what marker of personal success we reach or don’t reach.
Don’t fall so deeply into a cycle of self improvement that you fail to enjoy your life right now
I had the biggest fun today playing with three air package sacs (that say not a toy).
Last time I had this much fun I slurped my spaghetti for the first time.
these are priceless to me and I’d take the simple pleasures any day a thousand times over success on exams or money or a “fit” physique. On that note with resolutions coming up, let’s stop fat shaming. Adipose tissue has a purpose and all of us are beautiful exactly as we are right now.
watch your health, of course. Don’t eat foods that clog arteries or dose your body up with too much sugar or carbs for it to quickly process. Overall be kind to yourself and your body and love yourself this year
Hi Stephan!
Thank you, that was my exact plan. I will focus on myself and setting the bounderies to be more myself this year so I will attract the right guy for me. Thank you to writing down all these important behaviours.
So true and I am doing all or most of the things you listed, ironically. It’s so hard, after a festive season, all marketed on being a cosy couple giving and receiving perfect presents to further the perfection and not to feel completely desperate come the New Year. All your coupled up friends believing your future happiness completely and utterly depends on finding a keeper and constantly reminding you of your age. Like a year down the line it’s going to be near on impossible as you’ll suddenly be way past desirable. Where you once thought you’d only hold out for what you deserve you suddenly want to couple up with anyone even remotely interested. So yes, step back, pause, let all rational thought re-enter your brain and find the energy to get re-motivated to do all those things you dreamt up, have planned for and would bring great, tangible results.
Great article once again Steve ..thank you …xoxo
Claudia Maria Christoph
claudia-christoph@gmx.de
Hello Stephen,… what you say impress me deeply, this is exactly what I am doing. I had a hard time in my life and now I am sooo happy having break free and being independent now and building my wonderful new life for my little son and me. Yes sometimes I feel lonely working so hard even at the weekend. But your good advice helped me a lot… big thank you kiss….Claudia Maria
aw thank you for this Stephen. one of my goals is just this and your article has helped make it much less daunting. love making it about the process and treating it as an opportunity to work on myself which feels less pressured, more attainable and in my control. how empowering and motivating to move forward with. thanks again. another beautiful article.
So tonight my daughter asks if I’ll give her a sibling. I’m single. Her dad is married and is giving her a brother. I say – well, I’d have to get married first. Poor baby. She starts to cry and says she never wants me to get married. Quickly I realized we have the same issue – her dad. When I married him a switch flipped and he immediately became horrendous – angry, controlling, volatile, not warm at all- ever. Probably should have annulled but I didn’t believe in divorce – it was 5 years before I couldn’t take it anymore. When he remarried, I felt sick because I knew what she was going through and I don’t want anyone to have to go through that. The minute you can’t go back, he enjoys making it as awful as possible. He wants to destroy you. No wonder I don’t want to marry and this poor little girl thinks that’s what marriage is. I say – No baby. I know I know I know why you’re crying. That’s why I couldn’t be with your dad. Marriage isn’t supposed to be like that. I would never put you in a place like that. Marriage is fun and no one will yell and everyone will be kind. Now to get myself to believe that …
Thank you for this Amazing text. <3
I had to wait a couple of weeks before getting “back out there” because I had family visiting from out of town, so I needed to focus on them for a while. They left on Friday (Jan 13). So, last night I posted what I thought was a very thoughtfully-composed personal ad on Craigslist. I am trying to meet a nice, intelligent, healthy guy who didn’t vote for Trump (in a nutshell). Instead of receiving well-written, thoughtful responses, I’ve been receiving perfunctory one-liner intros (some with photos and some without) – and I suspect they are from middle-aged wingnuts who voted for Trump. I need to look at my ad again and figure out why it’s magnetizing the wrong men. Maybe I’m not giving off the right vibe for progressive men? Would I get more offers from liberal guys if I talked about certain tv shows or personalities they might like? What are the right “buzzwords” that progressive men will respond to? Maybe my ad was too generic? I always feel I’m hopeless at copywriting when this happens. I post and post and repost and I’m not nailing it. It’s frustrating. The last guy I dated was very likable, and he was for Bernie Sanders. The relationship ended because (a) a huge age difference and (b) he’s an atheist and I’m not (at least I think those are the reasons why – he wouldn’t actually tell me the specific reason he broke up with me; he only said it was a “personality thing”). I’ve seen word clouds online for speeches given by Clinton and Sanders, but I wonder if it would be possible to find a word cloud of words and phrases used frequently by their supporters on social media, in non-political contexts. Might help me find the right phrasing for my next ad. I’m going to have to delete this one soon.
Hi Stephen & Matthew,
I have a quick question that I really hope you could help me with. There is this guy that I really like, and I think he likes me. But I don’t know if he likes me or my sister. He is rather skittish of physical contact with me ( like a hug or putting his arm around me in a photo ). But with my sister he has no problem hugging her. Am I thinking into this to much or does that mean something?
I am not familiar with your policy if I can post it, I am not trying to advertise anything but wanted to share, for people who have issues with self esteem an amazing audio book by Caroline Myss “Self Esteem – Your fundamental power”. It’s not a book on pshycology but a spiritual practicum with physical affect on the body where self esteem is visioned as an ability of one’s spirit to be a co-creator of ones one life = very much in tune with everything what Matthew and his team shares in his products.
Hi, I read your book How to get the guy which I enjoyed but I feel like a lot of the info is for younger women. Iam a 60 year old woman soon to be 61, Iam doing the dating sites with no success. I have met some men but not the ones I want to meet, I had a couple of men ask me out to dinner when I said yes never heard from them again. Just don’t know what to do nowadays.Help
I treasure your lessons dearly although lam a 66year old single iranian poetess. And in my cuntry it is not usual to have a boyfriend.and we do not have bars or clubs openly ,so that people can meet new people. And there is no embassy to get
Vis to come to uk to participate in your seminars.forgive me for the long text. And please tell me what to do .thanks.