This is your life and you are free to start again any relationship. Seize the initiative and vow never to give up the search for Mr. or Ms Absolutely Right until you are physically enjoying the relationship of your life. Remember that wishing, hoping and regretting are the most common and dangerous tactics for evading the action you need to take to kick-start your love life. Don’t sell yourself short, don’t settle for second best and certainly don’t live alone unless you want to, because no matter how glossy a picture they paint in magazines, life is a desert without love.
As you look back on your life, you’ll find it’s not so much the things that you did that torment you, but the things that you could have done and didn’t. Two of the saddest words in the English language are ‘If only’.
Six letters between them and yet they have the power to immobilize strong hunky men and highly eligible women and render them redundant at any age in the world of relationships. These words crop up repeatedly whenever new clients arrive for stress management. ‘If only it wasn’t for… my mother, the kids, my job, the state of my finances, my weight, my age, my ex, my depression, the place where I live, etc, etc’
The trouble with ‘if only is that it doesn’t change anything. It keeps you stuck in your present situation facing the wrong way-backwards to the past instead of forwards to the future. Far better to change if only for the words ‘this time…’
It pays to prepare for love and to command the interpersonal skills and the expertise to manage a relationship constructively, but we shouldn’t put our love life on hold until everything is in place. It can be a mistake to put your search for love on the back burner until you accomplish certain goals because life does not divide easily into convenient little compartments. Love can be very elusive if you close yourself off ¡ª either intentionally or subconsciously to the possibility of love. It cannot be relied upon to show up just when it suits you!
A surprising number of high-achievers assume that they must put their lives neatly in order before they can enter a meaningful relationship, but it is just as logical and far more realistic to take the view that meeting the right person will help you to make the best of yourself; and you’ll be having much more fun while you’re at it! As long as you have genuine motives for wanting a relationship, it is not necessary to have the practical elements of your life – career, house, car, finances, physical fitness, optimum weight, etc in order before you open your heart to someone really special. Having your life perfectly together offers many advantages but may appear intimidating, even boring, to others.
Whether or not you win in love has little to do with the availability of eligible people within your neighborhood, place of work or circle of friends and everything to do with your sense of purpose and your degeneration to find precisely the right partner. If we believe in something, and if we want it enough, we can do quite amazing things – even greater than we dare to imagine.1