Section 2: Realign Your Picker

Step 1: You don’t have to love being single, but you do have to like it.

“Hate being single” is a real predicament. If you hate or even dislike it, you stay in relationships too long, lower your standards and settle for the wrong people. You likely have a disturbing relationship to loneliness. If single = lonely, its time to get a new perspective on being single. Big time. Love is wonderful. Being in a relationship can be incredible. But you must at least fall in like with your life without a relationship first so that you do not endanger your sanity with lowered standards.

3 things you can do now to help this process:

1. Focus on your interests and passions. Sounds cliche, but you have to focus on what inspires you. Work, play, whatever. When we are in relationship, a huge part of our energy goes to this other person. Leverage all your energy into a project of some sort.

2. Identify one thing you’ve been procrastinating doing and do it. This will have an enormous impact on your sense of accomplishment and lead to confidence and satisfaction. Those two states are worth investing your energy into as they lead to more positive emotions.

3. Spend much more time connecting with the people in your life that you love. Family and friends. Connecting with loved ones creates deeper meaning in all of our lives. When our life feels meaningful without a partner, we win.

Step 2: Value your sanity

When you value your peace of mind, you won't want any more drama. When your sanity becomes more important to you than the push-pull of an intense and scarce relationship, you change the game for yourself. But all drama and toxicity aside, when you truly value your sanity, you won’t choose a partner who you know is going to drive you absolutely bonkers DAILY. Anyone you end up with is going to drive you nuts once and while and YOU are going to drive em’ crazy as well. That's normal. That’s happily ever after folks. But for example, if you are by nature a very orderly person who thrives in organized environments and falls apart in disorderly ones, you may be attracted to a messy and disorganized person, but you’ll drive each other up a wall. Forget about living together, vacationing together and raising kids together. 

Only you know what you can handle FOR THE LONG TERM and what you can’t. What I’m asking is that you are real with yourself. Trust me, I’ve worked with a lot of couples at this point to be able to say these kinds of things destroy partnerships.

Step 3: Know your temperament

What I mean by this is, understand your nature. If, as I just mentioned, you are an orderly person who gravitates towards order, organization, and systems, then its best you know this about yourself. And own it. If you’re an introvert, you take in the world very differently than an extrovert would. If you’re an artist, that’s very different from being an intellectual. If you’re a sensitive type with a delicate nervous system who’s highly emphatic, then you must recognize this is your temperament and it is part of what makes you, YOU. Opposites definitely attract and they can make a relationship work for the long haul *if and only if* they have enough other things in common such as core values, belief systems and visions for the future. If they don’t, its going to be a lot of uphill climbing. But don't look for someone who’s exactly the same as you - that’s boring and you don’t get the benefit of the alternative view point that can stretch and grow you. But your temperaments must align with another. They must fit together. 

Step 4: Self-Acceptance

I’m never going to tell you or anyone else to “fall in love with yourself”. You’ve had, and will continue to have, times where you don’t particularly like yourself. Just like if you're a parent, you may not particularly like your child at times. This is part of life. But there’s a difference between this and hating yourself. And there's a difference between sometimes being disenchanted with yourself and believing that you are not worthy or good enough.

That difference is self acceptance.

It is my belief that the journey for all human beings is the journey towards more and deeper levels of self acceptance. This belief serves as the foundation of all the work I do both personally and professionally.

Once you understand your nature, then you have to move towards accepting it.

• Have you ever tried to appear to be more ____ to capture someone’s attention and devotion?

• Have you ever down played your ______ in order to be loved?

• Have you ever acted like ______ doesn't matter in order to convince someone to be with you?

• Have you ever blamed a partner for your relationship problems?

• These are the lies we tell both to ourselves and others.

Self acceptance is not a hall pass from doing the work that needs to be done in order for you to be a better person. We must do the work. It means we should be realistic about the fact that some parts of ourselves may not change or improve as much as we would like, and that is fundamentally OK. We are worthy and good enough in spite of it all. 

When you accept yourself, you ultimately will not tolerate someone who doesn’t. Please do the Self-Acceptance Blueprint to dive deeper into this process.

Step 5: Define your values

And then cherish them. Know what moves you profoundly, and don't compromise here. When we don’t live our lives congruently with what matters to us the most, we abandon ourselves. Self - abandonment is harder to recover from than the pain inflicted by someone who leaves you. But you can’t uphold your value system if you have not yet clearly defined what it is. A hint: our value hierarchy changes as we change, so don't assume that your values should stay the same. There’s a Values section is in this blueprint.

Here are 9 powerful grounding practices for when you feel anxious, in the clouds, or not enough after a great date:

1. Breathe. Sounds trite but it’s ESSENTIAL. Anxiety is fight or flight which charges your nervous system which then leads to more anxious thoughts. It’s a vicious cycle. Breathe, and focus on lengthening your exhale.

2. Journal. Get out pen and paper and write down all your projections. All the childlike fantasies you have that you are placing on to this individual. This individual who you barely know. It helps to see it all on paper because it’ll give you perspective.

3. Hang out with your friends. When you spend time with your besties, you’re reinforcing the fact that you have your own, worthy life to your subconscious.

4. Ask your closest friends to hold you accountable: Your dearest friends want what is best for you, and they see the absolute beauty in you that you may be failing to see in yourself. Ask them to help you keep it real.

5. Redirect your focus on what's important to you: Be it your work, a project, or whatever - stay close to what matters to you. The more you feel connected to what lights you up, the better. This reminds you again that you have a worthy, exciting and important life that someone has to be invited IN TO.

6. Move your body: The fastest way to get out of your head is to do something with your body that makes it impossible to think about anything else other than the task at hand. You decide what that is based on your physical capability.

7. Remind yourself, often, that you do NOT know this person, so it is actually impossible to know if he or she is the right person for you yet: We are very complex beings, and it takes time to decipher if they are truly a match.

8. Put a limit on how much you check your phone. Give yourself a rule.

9. Put a cap on the daydreaming. Interrupt it by shifting your focus onto the present. Notice your surroundings in a whole new light. We miss so much every single moment of every single day. Practicing this level of presence is incredibly grounding.