There’s no way to guarantee that you’ll find love. But you’ll have a much better chance if you’re doing these six things:
You aren’t going to pretend not to care about someone who is important to you. You’re going to speak from the heart, even when it means making yourself vulnerable. If someone matters to you, then you’re going to make sure they know how you feel. You aren’t going to bottle up your emotions. You aren’t going to let self-doubt get in the way of being honest. You’re going to be straightforward with others about what you want – and more importantly, you’re going to stay honest with yourself.
This could mean signing up for dating apps, agreeing to let friends set you up, or simply striking up conversations with cute strangers you meet in the wild. As long as you’re giving yourself the chance to meet new people online and in person, you’re moving in the right direction. After all, you aren’t going to find love if you refuse to have a conversation with anyone new. You need to push aside your fear of rejection and fear of the unknown, and let yourself wonder what would happen if everything went right.
You understand that you’re a work in progress, that you have baggage, that you aren’t a perfect human being – and you’ve been doing the work to heal from what’s hurt you in the past. You are putting in effort to love others the right way because you would never want the bad habits you learned in old relationships to get in the way of a new, healthier relationship. You’re walking into this year without the desire to get back together with your exes. You’re ready to move forward and search for something new.
You’ve learned from your past. Now, you know what traits are red flags for you. Even better, you know what traits you need in a partner in order to feel fulfilled. Even though you shouldn’t be too strict with your checklist of what you want in another person, it’s always good to know when someone is simply incompatible with you. If you have a good idea about what type of partner makes sense with you, it’s going to make it easier to figure out whether someone is worth taking a risk on.
If someone isn’t willing to put a label on the relationship, even though you want something serious, you’ll walk away. You aren’t going to waste your time wondering whether this person is going to change their mind and start taking your relationship seriously. You’re going to save yourself some time and move on whenever someone disrespects you or when they openly state that they want something different than what you’ve been dreaming about.
You don’t need to love yourself in order for someone else to fall in love with you. However, when you’re happy with yourself and feel comfortable alone, there’s a smaller chance you’ll end up in the wrong relationship. Since you know yourself so well, you’ll know what you need. You’ll sense when someone is perfect for you and when someone is only going to cause you pain.
