Are you trying to get over your ex? Or ready to get your dating game on and meet your perfect match? Are you ready to date?
Our guest blogger, Renee Slansky is an Australian TV presenter, writer and professional blogger whoâs love for romance and heart for women compelled her to start her online community www.thedatingdirectory.co
From a young age she started leading and counselling women and was often called on by strangers and friends for relationship advice. With no professional training but rather what she picked up in experience, teachings and observation, her writings offer a witty and relative outlook with practical advice on life and romance in the 21st century.
Check out Renee’s advice below.
Are you ready to date, and for the right reasons?
Are you dating for the right reasons and from the right mindset so that you can actually get the progress in your love life that you want?Â
Watch Renee’s video below (11:27 mins). It’ll help you think about whether your ready and gives you things to consider before diving straight to the dating pool.
Just because we have a desire to meet someone and to date doesnât necessarily mean that we should. A lot of the time we act on our feelings without first assessing where is this feeling coming from?
Is it healthy and is it something that I should actually be doing?Â
Before ploughing ahead, consider Renee’s expert advice below, or you may find yourself:
- hating the process
- getting hurt
- falling for the wrong person
- being exhausted by the whole process
1. Dating mindset
Now, if youâve watched any of my trainings or if youâve worked with me, youâll know that I talk about your dating mindset, because your mindset is basically where you make your decisions from and our decisions result in who we engage with and what we do with that person.
And if youâre just throwing yourself out there, youâre just like, âI want to date. Iâm just going to go date,â And you donât have any intention, you donât have any purpose, you donât have any strategy and youâre doing it from a place of fear.
Whether itâs fear of missing out on love or fear that youâre never going to get over the ex or fear that youâre not going to have children or fear that youâre going to die alone with 52 cats, then you will attract feedback or you will attract the result that will solidify that fear.
And thatâs something thatâs actually called self-prophesying-where we become so focused on this terror that hasnât even happened. This fear that we then go and act out of that fear and then we make it a reality.
And again, it solidifies that conviction that all men are like that and thatâs how love is and love hurts. And it just becomes this really sort of toxic cycle.
So what I would do is I do a little bit of a self-audit and Iâd ask yourself:
- Why do I want a date and what I want to get out of this dating process.
- Am I dating just because I want a casual fling?
- Am I dating to find love?
- Am I dating because Iâm bored?
- What are your intentions behind it?
2. Take it slow
Throwing yourself into the deep end isnât really going to do you any justice. Itâs just going to make you freak out.
And if you go to an extreme, youâre always going to get an extreme reaction.
If you just go all into your next relationship when you know that youâre probably not ready and you love-bomb that person or you move too fast and too soon.
So what I would do is I would just test the waters a little bit. Definitely thereâll be some clear indications if youâre not ready to date.
Indication 1 - Comparison
Are you constantly comparing your ex to the person that youâre dating?
Are you finding that at the end of the day you go back home and all you think about is your ex and then youâre over-romanticising what you had with them even though it obviously ended for a reason. So comparisonâs a big one.
Indication 2 - Fear and anxiety
Do you have fear about dating? Do you have anxiety when it comes to going on dates? Now we all get a little bit nervous and if weâre putting ourselves out there for the first time in a long time, then of course you have a little bit of anxiety.
But if you are literally paralysed about the thought of meeting someone else or the thought of falling in love or the thought of getting hurt or the thought of dating, then you probably need to do a little bit more healing before you actually go out there and date.
Because you have to remember itâs not just about you. Youâre also affecting the person that you are dating and you donât want to go around hurting other people because youâre hurting yourself.
Indication 3 - Ghosting
If youâre ghosting your dates or benching your dates as in kind of putting little investment in but not really a lot because youâre too scared, then you probably shouldnât be dating.
Indication 4 - Low investment
If you are finding that youâre going on dates but youâre just not making the effort and youâre kind of just going, but youâve got low energy, youâre not really engaging.
And low investment is an indication that youâre not really in it for the right reasons and itâs obviously being reflected through your actions.
3. Get clear on the why
As I was saying at the beginning of this video, why do you want to date? Do you want to date because you are trying to move on from the ex and you think that if you date somebody else you will eventually just forget about him?
Are you dating because everyone else is doing it or because you can because youâve got access to dating apps?
The clearer that you can get on the why the more then you will know your intention. Itâll help you work out, âOkay, am I doing this for the right reasons or do I actually need to take a rain check for a little bit longer?â
4. Enhance, not heal
Closure is something that I believe happens in stages. Closure needs to be based on facts, not feelings. If a relationship ends, obviously it ended for a reason and waiting till you feel like youâre in a certain position is not a reason to hold out on closure.
Closure needs to be a choice. But I also believe that healing and full closure is something that will happen in stages.
Itâs normal to still be thinking about an ex if theyâre a big part of your life and sometimes meeting a new person really can help you get over that ex because you can realise that, âHang on a second. Thereâs someone else that makes me feel this way.â
Thereâs someone else that I can love or have the possibility of loving and have them love me back.â
But if youâre purely dating to just try and get over someone rather than dating to enhance someone elseâs life and have them enhance your life, thatâs a different story.
Don't date for distraction
You shouldnât be dating to try and get over someone or heal something in your heart. You have to first work on that baggage and that issue and that hurt first so that you arenât then dating from that place of fear and lack, which is just going to cause you to either invest into the wrong people or hurt someone in the process.
5. Are you guarding your heart or blocking love?
When you date and when youâre putting yourself back out there, there is a difference between guarding your heart and blocking love.
Guarding your heart is about going, âOkay, Iâm going to have certain standards in place. Iâm going to pace myself.
Iâm going to make sure I make wise decisions instead of emotionally reacting to how I feel,â as opposed to blocking someone.
Blocking them because you obviously have this fear of getting hurt is usually representative in the way that you donât reciprocate much.
You set your expectations so incredibly high that they canât even achieve them because theyâre not even healthy.
And then you push people away and you donât want to date and push people away, because obviously that kind of contradicts the whole point of dating.
Yet, at the same time, you donât want to be so open that you fall for someone that you donât really know and then you get hurt.
