Resolving to Find Love
- Saturday, January 21 2012 @ 08:56 am
- Contributed by: Jet
- Views: 1,237
It’s the start of a new year - a time, for many of us, that signifies a fresh beginning, a time to assess, to make new goals. Unfortunately, it also tends to be marked by unrealistic expectations and self-inflicted pressure. The resolution craze is seen in the world of online dating, as well; it’s not uncommon for someone to decide that this will be the Year They Find Love. What they don’t know is that such an approach may hinder them more than help.
The problem with Finding Love is that it’s a slow process, an organic process. It starts as something dramatically different - infatuation, maybe, or friendship - and it’s not immediately recognizable. By focusing on the end goal - a long-term relationship, marriage, or something more nebulous - it’s possible to overlook or stumble on smaller steps along the way. At the very least, it’s harder to enjoy a blossoming relationship when you’re waiting for some magical, later point.
It’s also rather like making a goal to lose one hundred pounds: even when you’ve lost two, you know that you still have 98 to go, so it’s tempting to give up altogether. When you’ve made the lofty goal to find a life partner NOW, it can be easy to overlook the fact that you’ve received more responses to your first-contact emails than ever before. Giving yourself a daunting goal makes it all the more tempting to give in to negativity.
So what do you do when you want to make life changes? Start small, don’t give yourself an impossible time limit, and celebrate the small victories. Even if that first date didn’t pan out to something more, it was still a date! Perhaps you could set a goal to contact more people than you were before. Simply being proactive and getting out there is progress.
There’s nothing wrong with challenging yourself to achieve a goal, and some people work best with a formalized resolution. Just make sure you’re working with your strengths, and not making life more difficult for yourself. And when it comes to friendships, dating, and love, remember: enjoy the journey as much as the destination.
The problem with Finding Love is that it’s a slow process, an organic process. It starts as something dramatically different - infatuation, maybe, or friendship - and it’s not immediately recognizable. By focusing on the end goal - a long-term relationship, marriage, or something more nebulous - it’s possible to overlook or stumble on smaller steps along the way. At the very least, it’s harder to enjoy a blossoming relationship when you’re waiting for some magical, later point.
It’s also rather like making a goal to lose one hundred pounds: even when you’ve lost two, you know that you still have 98 to go, so it’s tempting to give up altogether. When you’ve made the lofty goal to find a life partner NOW, it can be easy to overlook the fact that you’ve received more responses to your first-contact emails than ever before. Giving yourself a daunting goal makes it all the more tempting to give in to negativity.
So what do you do when you want to make life changes? Start small, don’t give yourself an impossible time limit, and celebrate the small victories. Even if that first date didn’t pan out to something more, it was still a date! Perhaps you could set a goal to contact more people than you were before. Simply being proactive and getting out there is progress.
There’s nothing wrong with challenging yourself to achieve a goal, and some people work best with a formalized resolution. Just make sure you’re working with your strengths, and not making life more difficult for yourself. And when it comes to friendships, dating, and love, remember: enjoy the journey as much as the destination.
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