Be What You Want to Attract

We have a friend who is recently back in the dating scene. When asked what he is looking for, he describes a woman who is motivated, smart, stable and successful. Sounds great, doesn’t it? His problem is that what he attracts doesn’t tick off all four of those desires. She may be smart, but unmotivated, content with the status quo. Or maybe she is successful but also unstable, acting as a drama conduit into the relationship. He knows that these women exist; he sees them every day. He just can’t understand why he does not seem to attract them.

Relationships are not like magnets. With dating, like attracts like. In other words, be what you want to attract.

The reason that he is not finding what he desires is that he does not yet fulfill all of those listed categories himself. Before he can find the woman of his dreams, he has to first turn himself into the man of her dreams.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is entering relationships with the intent of changing the other person. Relationships always require change and compromise. But not for your partner. For yourself.

In the best relationships, your partner does not try to change you. Rather, you want to change yourself in order to be better for your partner.

The first step in dating is deciding what you want and then taking an honest look at yourself to see if you are what you want to attract. If you want motivated, do you continually work to improve yourself? If you want stable, do you avoid needless drama and have your life together? If you want happy, are you happy? If you want trustworthy, do you act with integrity? If you want fit, are you able to turn away from the doughnut table?

If you’re having trouble attracting the men or women you would like, look at the commonalities of those you do attract. There are clues there that will alert you to your own areas of need. Do you repeatedly draw people who always seem to be in crisis? If so, you may have an intensity set point that is too high. Are you attracted to people that always seem to need to be taken care of? Perhaps your own well-being is based on being needed and your own sense of self-worth needs some work.

The partners in a relationship should not complete each other; they should complement each other.

If you want a healthy relationship, the first step is making yourself a healthy individual. Remember – like attracts like. When you’re awesome, that’s what you’ll find.