3 steps towards banishing your limiting dating beliefs
Stop your limiting dating beliefs from holding you back
I’ve just been out on a shoot with a gorgeous, talented, whip-smart client…and spent most of the time listening to her articulate her limiting beliefs about online dating. I felt compelled to write a blog tackling this as, unfortunately, this isn’t an unusual occurrence. Lots of people seem to be harbouring and hanging on to limiting beliefs, which are holding them back when it comes to dating. In the short space of time I was hanging out with this lovely client, I picked up on some of her key limiting beliefs which included:
‘I’m never going to find love online’,
‘All the good guys will get snapped up quickly’
‘For a man to need to date online, there must be something not quite right about him’
Now, if she is approaching online dating with beliefs like that running through her head, I’m 100% certain she is going to struggle to find a good guy. Life has an unnerving way of giving you exactly want you are expecting. As Henry Ford once famously said:
Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right.”
In order to ensure you have a positive experience while online dating, it’s worth taking the time to banish your limiting dating beliefs as much as you can. Here’s how you can do that….
1. Identify what they are
When I talk about limiting beliefs, what I mean are things that you assume to be true as opposed to things that are fact, and which actually hold you back from creating a positive outcome rather than supporting you to achieve a positive one. Many of these beliefs are created during childhood and are formed through our experiences and interactions with the world around us. We take these beliefs and they form our ‘true view’ of the world. Your beliefs are obviously so embedded in your thought processes that the hardest bit is actually identifying them for what they are. I would suggest, sitting down with a pen and paper and really examining all the things that pop into your head, both good and bad, when you think about the online dating journey you find yourself on (or that is stretching out ahead of you if you haven’t started yet). To get you on the right track here are some more examples:
Limiting beliefs
All the best guys of my age are married.
I’m terrible on dates.
I’m too old to find anyone.
All my relationships end in disaster
I think at times, we may all have thought some of these limiting beliefs, the key is to recognise them for what they are ‘beliefs created by you that serve you no purpose’ and to challenge them.
2. Question these beliefs
The best way to challenge your beliefs is by reviewing them and questioning the validity of them. Once you scrutinise them, you’ll find you can rip holes in them and start dismantling them step by step.
For example, let’s look at the example, ‘I’m too old to find anyone’. Ask yourself whether there is really an age limit to finding love. Go online and find examples of people who fell in love at a later age (Harrison Ford, Paul McCartney, Ellen DeGeneres, George Clooney etc). Find evidence of people (and not just celebrities) who have met and fallen in love in the later years. People who meet and fall in love when they’re young often fall out of love (divorces statistics are pretty high as I’m sure you know) as they get older meaning there are lots of single & divorced people looking for love in their 40s, 50s and 60s. For every limiting belief that you’re nurturing, start finding evidence that proves that these beliefs simply aren’t true and write them down.
3. Rewrite them
Now rewrite your limiting beliefs, so that it’s a truth that supports you to be successful in your dating.
So for example
‘I’m too old to find anyone’
becomes
‘People meet and fall in love at every age, that’s the beauty of love’.
I’m actually a firm believer in how much better it is to meet and fall in love in later life. I TOTALLY believe (so much so that I made it happen) that if you meet and fall in love in your 40s for example, you have all the craziness of youth out of your system, you know yourself and you know what you want so much more and you’re ready to commit. That is a truth that I have created and it worked and still works for me.
You have the freedom to go and create your own positive dating truths. Truths that will support you in your dating journey not hold you back.
Take action
Change only happens when we take action. So if the beginning of this blog resonates with you, please stop and take a minute to work through your limiting beliefs. The biggest challenge when it comes to online dating is actually you. Your thoughts and your beliefs. So, please do yourself a solid – take a moment to work out what you’re telling yourself day in and day out when it comes to dating and challenge it. Make sure you’re your own cheerleader – backing yourself 100% when it comes to dating. You deserve this.
