Many of us are on the search for someone to fulfill our dreams and make us happy in love and life. The desire for love is natural, even to our biology. We are programmed by our DNA for bonding and connection. We are also raised to search for that one person who will make our lives complete. Yet, the divorce rate in our society is astronomical and many marriages or relationships are dead and unhappy. So what gives? The problem starts at the beginning. We are so busy looking for someone else to fulfill us that we never look at how to fulfill ourselves. We are not looking at who we are, what makes us happy or what we want out of love and life from an objective and wise perspective. Instead we are out hunting for someone to do that work for us. When we enter a relationship with a neediness for it to fill us, we will always choose less than we deserve because we will be choosing someone who also expects us to make them happy.
5 Self-Fulfillment Steps to Master Before Entering a Relationship
1. Look Your Best: When you respect yourself you make sure to take care of your appearance. If you do not like what you see in the mirror then it is likely that others won't be attracted to it either. There is no room for laziness in self-love or self-respect. If you don't consciously invest in yourself, neither will anyone else.
Take care of your dietary, sleep, exercise and style needs daily. A man or a woman will look at you and only put the level of effort into you, or below, what you put into yourself. What you look like and how you present yourself says a tremendous amount about how you feel about yourself.
2. Have a Purpose: Commit to having a much bigger "something" in this universe to live for than a relationship. There is something here you are called to do that is individual to who you are. There is nothing sexier than being with a person who is passionate about their education, career and life.
Having a purpose gives you something to bring to the table which shows maturity, responsibility, commitment and a desire to make a difference. Being interesting and self-sufficient is extremely attractive.
3. Be emotionally attractive: Get rid of being self-centered and dramatic. Negativity is ugly and is also contagious. There is nothing emotionally attractive about complaining, whining and/or anger. To be emotionally attractive you have to have your own sense of happiness about who you are.
Most relationships fizzle due to the loss of an emotional attraction. It isn't about being happy all the time, but it is about being authentic and elegant with your moods, sadnesses, angry moments and vulnerabilities.
Drama is what you do when you're afraid to express your real thoughts and emotions. Know your emotions and allow what needs to come up to come out. It is when you are real and unprotected you are the most emotionally attractive.
4. Learn to Follow: You cannot get to love if you cannot let go of controlling the ones you love. Over-giving is controlling, over-planning is controlling, telling your partner what to do and how to be is controlling, being demanding of your needs is controlling.
Being in love is about learning to let down the need to control, learning to receive and allowing someone else take the lead. When you are too controlling you make your partner feel they are not needed, are underappreciated and not capable of making you happy. This will kill love quickly. Learn to receive, learn to follow and relax into love. By doing less you get more.
5. Love yourself: If you do not love who you are, you cannot expect someone to love you for you. You have to commit to continually making your individual life fulfilling and happy. You do not want to lose yourself in your relationship where you stop doing the things which bring you the greatest amounts of happiness.
Take care to maintain your friendships, times to be alone, your workouts and how you eat. Keep up with your individual treasures of happiness and avoid surrendering all that responsibility to your partner. Being someone you love and adore will make you easier to love.
Being difficult to love isn't the challenge you want to set up for your partner. They will tire quickly.
In committing to these steps you become more and more of who you want to be. In committing to this type of self-love you take full responsibility for your life and happiness. This makes you loveable and much more aware and wise in your decisions in who you choose to love. When you have low self-worth you will love mostly anyone willing to love you, and you often end up settling for less, becoming less and believe less in yourself and in love. To have more you must be committed to being more. Loving yourself attracts someone to love you as you love yourself. It all starts within.
Sherapy Advice: Don't wait for love to fulfill you, be the love which fulfills you. In becoming more you will never settle for less in love.