The one thought that is sabotaging your dating life

You might be having a hard time with some of this. You may have never thought like this before.

Everything that I am sharing may kind of rub you in a way that you haven’t been rubbed before. You may struggle with it. Or want to believe what I am sharing but something is holding you back. What is it?

Your old beliefs…

Your old belief system is ingrained really deep. Beliefs are thoughts you have thought on repeat over and over. You have some beliefs about yourself, about men, about the dating process and even about God that play out in the result that you have right now.

Most of the time the beliefs are so deep they are unconscious to you and seem normal or factual.

Your old beliefs may sound something like this:

Maybe I am supposed to be single.

I don’t know if God has marriage for me.

Dating is too hard and I just can’t do it.

I don’t have time for this.

I have dated guys and all they want is sex, this just won’t work.

I don’t know enough people to meet new guys.

All the guys I am around are too young, too old, or married.

There aren’t any good guys in my church.

I think I would have to move to find someone.

Maybe my town is too small and so I am not supposed to be married.

I don’t think this is my year, let’s just forget about it.

There are creepy guys online there is no way I would do that.

Oh, if people found out I was dating someone online…

You might have some of these beliefs and when not addressed or examined you actually believe they are true. I will have women express to me that they have so much proof of this. But proof or not if you believe it is true, than it will be. Unknowingly you create that result just because you have that thought.

Go back through that list and identify which ones you agree with. Notice that when you think like that you take no action towards the process. Your beliefs play out because you only see the negative of it all. And remember you have believed this over and over on repeat for many years. There is little chance your brain is looking for evidence at all in contrast to this belief. You are pretty happy just holding onto it and staying right where you are. 

But there is one belief that I am seeing most of my clients believing and I want to help you stop believing it.

There is no way a guy could like me.

That thought is killing you in this area. You have decided in your mind that he couldn’t like you and you have a list of reasons why. Do you know why you have that list? It is because it is the list of reasons you use on yourself to not like you.

How can you believe someone could like you if you don’t even like you?

This has to stop. This one belief right here is keeping you stuck. It is sabotaging your dating life. It may be the one reason you don’t put yourself out there.

Because listen if you don’t like yourself for that list, you know he won’t like you for that list.

So what do you do about that list?

Cover it up.

Change it.

Lose the weight.

Put on the makeup.

Hide. Be quieter.

Work to be different.

You are doing all of that instead of entering into dating.

Dating is unknown, filled with doubt, confusing, hard, and time-consuming. It can be vulnerable and uncertain. And if you don’t like you and have an entire list of things that need to change before you can qualify for this arena than of course you would stay away from all of this.

 You have disqualified yourself for this process ahead of time. I like to call that failure ahead of time. A dating relationship may fail, but to avoid that, let’s fail ahead of time. 

He may not like me, and I don’t like me so let’s just avoid this whole thing.

You know what needs to change in all of this?

You liking you.

No one can ever like you enough for you to like you.

That is an inside job. The thoughts that you have about you creates your like or dislike for you. So in order to change those thoughts you have to get clear on them and then decide if they are serving you and creating a feeling of like or not.

I teach all about this in my individual coaching and group-coaching program.

This is the first and probably the most important step in moving to where you want to be in life. We have to clean up your relationship with yourself.

When a guy rejects you (chooses not to like you in this way) your brain will then use that as ammo and say see I knew this would happen. We don’t like us either. This is true and will always be true. We are unlikable. Done deal in your brain. It knew it all along.

Angie

Walking through the dating process

The world around us right now is a HUGE reminder of all that is broken and hurting. I am saddened because I believe it shouldn’t be like this. But it is. So, we must stop and become aware. If there is anything I hope you are learning from me right now is you CAN become aware of what is going on with you. So I encourage you to do just that. Stop, give time to the issues around you right now. Sit with a pen and paper and write out your thoughts. Your toddler brain wants you to hear what it thinks right now. Show it the attention it is wanting. You will be amazed at what it has to offer you and the insight into what is going on with you during all of this.

I am being blown away but what my brain is teaching me and how I am growing and leaning into the tension of it all. The discomfort is normal. Honestly, I have been reminded of my own sin and how ALL have fallen short of the glory of God. That is me. It would be much easier for me to judge others in how they are handling things or did handle things, but that is me just wanting to justify my sin or my lack of worse sin than others. I am broken and must take ownership of that. That is where God’s power resides in us humbling ourselves and seeing ALL HUMANS as lovable. Our lack of love is where we have room to grow. I have been listening to Latasha Morrison for the last couple of years and encourage you to find someone that you are drawn to learn from as well. This is an area I am choosing to on purpose put effort into, and I know I will see growth here.

Many of you want growth in the marriage area. You are processing your desire for marriage. You are starting to own your desire. You may even be taking some action in this area. Others might be mulling this whole thing around. So, I wanted to take it a step further and share with you the dating process.

If you came to me and said, I want to get married, I would say okay I want you to have a goal of going on 50 dates in the next year. Some of you would laugh and say no thanks. Some of you would unfollow me and unsubscribe from my email list, believing that I was ridiculous. But for those of you even remotely interested, you might think, “Wow, could I really do that?”

I believe that ultimately if you didn’t find a guy that you wanted to love and he wanted to love you in return, you would learn a TON about yourself, other humans, and God.

I know that when posed with that challenge your brain would offer you all negative. You can only think about the fear, the hard, the unknown, and the heartache. I am aware that your brains job is to make you think that you could die. This would be so uncomfortable and a lot of hard work. This would require you to feel negative emotions and your brain is not up for that. It could be awkward, and ultimately it could not work. You could do all of this for nothing. You could waste an entire year of your life pursuing something that maybe you are not supposed to have. I see you. I get it. You are thinking exactly what you are supposed to think.

But I can see the other side of it too, the process that you will go through.  I am hooked on seeing the person you will become. There are strategic byproducts of having a goal and going for an outcome, that you may not even be aware of.

I think you would have some great date stories. I think you would be an example to so many of going after a dream. I think you would prove to yourself so many things about you. I think you would learn what you do like and what you don’t like in guys. I think you would have tried some different restaurants or activities in the year. I think you would learn to experience some emotions that you may have been avoiding as a single woman. I think you would learn more about humans in general. I think your relationship with God would strengthen as you relied on Him for wisdom and guidance in the process. I think you would make some new friends, encounter other’s stories, get better at dating, and try some new things. 

You think that you want to find someone that loves you and that you love too, but really this is just the next obstacle you are ready and willing to tackle in life. This goal can be your classroom. This step of becoming the next version of you in the story of your life is a process. It is a becoming of someone you are currently not. You don’t think the way you will when you are married. You don’t have the ability to believe the things you will when someone loves you the way you dream of being loved. That is the hardest part. Because in order to become that person you have to be committed to the process. You have to be all in. You must be committed. No matter what happens I am going to go on these 50 dates. Each and every guy or date or week is going to bring up new obstacles. Each obstacle will require you to think differently than you have before. Each new way of thinking will allow you to act differently than you have before. And in that process you become different. You change. You come face to face with beliefs you have and you question them. You realize things that you never knew before. This is brilliant. You are on purpose creating growth for yourself. You are bumping into the discomfort and deciding how you want to handle it. Through this process you learn and grow and change. I know I love that, don’t you?

But if you choose this challenge you would be purposefully stepping into growth. And normally we just wait for the hardships and challenges to come our way. We try to make it through the hard and get back to normal life. This would be different. This would be you choosing all of that. This would be strategic growth. Do you want that?

I am here watching you walk through the discomfort to the other side,

Angie

5 ways to meet new guys

When you believe that God owns all the cattle on all the fields of all the land, and He owns and created all the men in the world, you start to believe that one of those men could love you and you could love him back.

That is a belief that could change the results you have in your life.

I believed the opposite. There isn’t a way in the world that there could be even one guy that likes me and I like him back.  That belief kept me single. I believed it was too hard. I believed that I had to sit back and wait. I believed I couldn’t want something without a guarantee that I would get it.  I don’t really know where those beliefs started and it really doesn’t matter, what matters most for you is that if you do believe that way, we can go in and replace that belief with something that you actually want to believe.

If you believe there could be many different guys that you could like and they like you back then you open yourself up to the possibility that the hardest part is just finding them. From that thought we create a plan to solve that problem.

How do I meet these guys?

Well I think the best thing for you to do is to sit down and brainstorm that very question and see what your brain offers you.

I will give you some of my thoughts.

1.     Get online.

 Clean up your thoughts about this one first. You may have some judgment around this avenue and you need to deal with it before you step into this arena.

This is a way to meet lots of different people from all over. That may scare you because it seems unknown. It also may scare you because it might work. So know your why and get clear on who you want to be as you present yourself to the online world. It may seem vulnerable because you may know someone or it may seem desperate because you have now resorted to the online game. Whatever you think about this space will create your relationship with it. I know online dating gets a bad reputation but I know many women who have gotten over their thinking and found the love of their life online. What do you need to work through to make this space work for you?

2. Ask your friends if they know any good guys.

 Again, check your thoughts because you may have a hard time asking for help. You may also feel a need to please your friends by liking someone they offer you. This doesn’t have to be pressure filled, it can just be another opportunity to meet a great guy and get to know yourself and what you are really looking for. If your friends know you, you might want to take things personal if it doesn’t work out. So don’t put pressure on them either. Just asking them if they know any good guys is opening up to the possibility that there could be people that we are close to in proximity that maybe we just haven’t met before. I am pretty certain the world is more connected to each other than we know sometimes.

I love this story from a friend of mine. Her friend had been overseas for many of her 20s and was coming back to the United States and knowing she had a desire to meet a guy and get married. She emailed all her friends in the States and told them her plans to go around and visit everyone and she wanted to go on blind dates and meet some different guys. Her friends set her up on dates, she went and sure enough one of those dates worked out.

Just the fact that she was willing to put herself out there and ask, opened up the possibility to meet some guys she never had before. I love that it wasn’t a game for her. She knew what she wanted and asked for help to get there. Could you do that?

3. Put yourself in environments to meet guys in the age range you are interested in.

 This is so key; make sure it is the age range you are looking for. I know so many people that put themselves in environments with men but they might all be married or too young. I will chat with a single women and say what guys have you been around and their answer is all my friends are married, so just their husbands. FYI: that will not get you a husband unless you are interested in stealing your friend’s husband. Get clear on your age range and don’t be afraid to target getting around those types of guys. I think there is so much negative push back about actively trying for something you really want. If you told me you wanted to be a chef I would say okay let’s find the best cooking schools, figure out which one might work for you, let’s get you in front of other chefs, see how they became one, etc. But when it comes to marriage we are like, well, good luck with that. I hope that works out.

 Put yourself around single guys for goodness sakes. And don’t be ashamed of that. This is one of the things you most want in your life. Stop acting like you don’t!

So get creative on how to get around guys, period, don’t add unnecessary drama to it all, just solve the problem with options. Join a co-ed cooking class, go to the singles ministry at church, at your friends church, at random churches. You like softball, play on some different leagues. You bowl, look into that. Whatever your interests connect with other single people over those interests. If you believe you can’t be around guys, then let me tell you, you won’t be around guys. If you think it is hard it will be. A great thought for you is, it is easy to meet new guys. You believe that?

4. Get out

Seriously, there is like a 1 in a trillion chance that your knight in shining armor is going to knock on your door and come looking for you. I don’t know many people that don’t go out and do things, and stumble upon meeting a bunch of different guys. If you stay at home your chances of meeting new people are more limited. Which is fine as long as you want to limit your chances. So if you are invited to do things, go.

Go to the wedding, or the friend’s barbecue. Go study at Panera, or your local coffeeshop. Take a foreign language class or pottery class in your town. Do things. Create opportunities to meet other humans. You might say, well what if I go and there aren’t many guys?  That is fine, get to know the girls and remember they might have guy friends. This is all just an opportunity for you to get better at meeting people in general and becoming someone who believes you can meet guys that you might want to get to know better.

5. Throw parties

Create opportunities for people to gather. Invite people to invite people. Open yourself up to expanding your reach in the world. Remember this whole process is going to grow you as a human. You are becoming someone different than you ever have been before. Giving you these spaces to invite people in, is also opening up opportunities for them too. Listen, you are allowing people to get to know other people, that is always a win. You are expanding your connections. Anytime we connect more we allow God to use us in other’s lives and them in ours. You up for that?

All of these things are just to get you thinking. This is meant to make you question what you are willing to do. This may help you expand the limits you may unknowingly set for yourself. I dare you to open up to these ideas and try a few. Remember, you don’t have to create drama around them, just do it. Try to meet other people and see what comes up for you as you engage in this way. Whatever does come up for you is just a clearer insight into what is holding you back from stepping more fully into meeting your future husband.

You have to believe he could be out there.

This is me believing for you, until you can,

Angie