As the year comes to a close, you may be considering your new year’s resolutions. And if you’re single right now, some of those resolutions may involve dating. Whether you want to get back into dating after a hiatus, revise your dating strategy, or give yourself a break from dating, resolutions—or better yet, goals—can help you stay focused. What’s more, it can help you create a set of boundaries with how you want to approach dating—and in turn, how you want potential partners to approach you.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]It’s a good idea to start small. It may not be helpful, for instance, to have a resolution that is so big it’s overwhelming—like getting into a relationship, getting engaged, or completely overhauling your sex life in a year’s time. Your new year’s dating resolutions should guide and support you throughout the year without adding pressure. The point of dating resolutions is to challenge old patterns and explore new things and people. The destination is just gravy.
In fact, three small resolutions that can make a real impact next year in your dating life are: prioritizing your love life, putting your emotional needs first, and dating against your type.
All of these resolutions allow you to change incrementally throughout the year. You may also find that you will have opportunities to succeed and fail multiple times without completely losing hope. For instance, if you start seeing someone who is your usual type, it’s not the end of the world. Perhaps by that point you will have dated against type enough that you know more about why you’re attracted to your type; you get to be more intentional when you select people.
Many of my clients decide to work with me because of their resolution to prioritize their love life. They often have put off dating while they focused on their careers, education, or raising children, and now feel ready to focus on an area of their lives where they feel less confident. Putting your desire to be in a relationship or being intimate with other people first can feel like a big leap that is just scary enough to keep you from trying at all.
What prioritizing your love life means is making sure that you don’t push dating and relationships to the bottom of your to-do list every single time. It may look like working with a dating coach who can hold you accountable and walk you through the travails of dating, attending a speed dating event here and there, or starting up an online dating profile. Whatever steps you take, let your resolution help you to make choices that support you making the best effort you can this year.
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Another resolution you might find helpful is putting your emotional needs first in dating. This means understanding when dating feels fun and energizing versus draining and depressing—and acting accordingly. Oftentimes, I see daters get completely burnt out by dating because they push themselves beyond their limits. They overcommit and have too many first dates in a row (or on the same day). They try to apply the same level of effort in dating even when they are dealing with bigger personal issues, or they don’t give themselves enough time to process after a rejection.
I’m a big advocate for daters making dating what they need it to be, rather than forcing themselves through the process out of fear of missing out. Your options will actually be much better when you are in an emotionally good place to date. If you’re someone who has found yourself rolling your eyes when you get a match on the apps, or dragging yourself from one lackluster date to another, it may be time to set a resolution to check in more often with how you’re feeling and give yourself permission to pull back when the energy is off.
Putting your emotional needs first can also mean leaving when your date makes you uncomfortable no matter how long you’ve been there, or letting someone know when you feel overwhelmed by their communication style or how fast things are moving. Setting these kinds of boundaries not only protects your time and energy, but also helps others know how you would like to be treated and what you expect from the relationship you’re building.
Everyone comes into dating with unconscious biases. We have ideas about the kinds of people we’ll most likely get along with and can ascribe meaning to where someone went to school or the kind of job they have. But relationships are based on qualities much deeper than these surface-level snap judgments our brains make, so it’s important to give different types of people a chance even though they may not fit the exact mold you have in mind.
We all fall into unhelpful patterns while dating, and resolutions can help us break these. I’ve advised so many clients to date against their type because who they naturally gravitate towards may not actually be the best long-term match for them. How many times have you heard someone say of their partner “They are the exact opposite of who I thought I’d end up with.” You may never meet your match if you don’t resolve to break out of dating the same kinds of people.
Read More: Stop Taking First Dates So Seriously
Having seen so many daters set dating goals and achieve them, I understand the power that new year’s resolutions can have. I’ve seen people date new types of people they really like, set better boundaries for themselves around their time and dating, and say “no” to things when in the past they would have said “yes” to, just to please the other person. I’ve seen my LGBTQIA+ clients find communities that help them feel less alone in dating and expand their network of potential matches. I’ve even had clients resolve to focus inward and learn to date themselves!
As you set your dating resolutions for the upcoming year, remember that dating is a journey with many stops along the way that help you evolve and change. Your resolutions should reflect the ways in which you would like to grow—not the final destination you’re trying to get to.
