Foundations: Episode 14

Recap: Life is more than merely dating. It is okay, even preferred, that you have a life outside of your dating life. In other words, you don't need to spend every minute of every day focusing on getting a girlfriend or boyfriend, or keeping the one you have already got. Find meaningful things to do with your time and it will be easier for you to find someone who agrees with your lifestyle.

Foundations Episode 13

Recap: Feeling sorry for yourself, thinking about and complaining about your problems isn't going to help you improve your situation.
You have to get out there and focus on fixing your situation.

Why you can't change anyone

I realize that a lot of my articles have been about changing yourself in order to fit the needs and wants of your future spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, or friends. But today I need to correct what might be a misconception about this topic: The only person that YOU can change, is you.
We all have equal potential to change our lives for the better, some are further in their progression than others, but each of us has the ability to become as benevolent and rich physically, mentally and emotionally as we desire. Why do people fail to obtain the things that they talk so much about wanting? Because, even with the ability to do anything and become anything, there are many who do not tap into their full potential.

Change requires work; it is a very challenging, and progression isn’t easy. The reason why so many people fail to achieve success in this life is because they:

1. Do not work hard enough-- Real growth and progression comes not from the end result, but the process of making a transformation. Eggs do not instantly become chicks, children are not instantly made into adults, and dreams do not fall right into our laps. There are a lot of things that happen “behind the scenes” before the end is reached. Success requires a gradual process, and work is a necessary component in achieving the things we desire most. No one can put in the work for you; no one cares enough about your success to do it for you, you need to do all of the hard work by yourself.
   Once you decide that you want to have an amazing relationship for the rest of your life, you still need to put in the work and make an effort to obtain that relationship.
2. Do not make the right sacrifices-- Sacrifices are only sacrifices when something is put on the line or given up. Ideally, sacrifices are designed so that when you give up one thing, you receive a better thing in its place, but not all sacrifices work out that way. When you sacrifice the wrong thing, you don’t get any closer to the thing you ultimately want to have. True too, when you give up something that isn’t really of worth to you, then you really aren’t sacrificing and won’t make any progress either.
   Selfishness is a natural part of every one of us, and it is often this character trait that we must sacrifice in order to reach our goals and dreams--particularly when those dreams involve relationships with other people.
3. Aren’t working towards anything--To reach success, you need to have a well-defined idea of what success is. What is it that you are working towards? What do you want to accomplish? If you can’t answer that question, then you are left at a standstill--you are left like the sailor who has no heading and with no heading, it doesn’t matter which direction you go, you still won’t get any closer.
   With relationships, you need to understand what it is that you want out of a relationship. What needs do you have to fulfill? At what point in the relationship will you feel you have reached success?

Just like no one can do the work for you, you can’t do the work for someone else. Any sacrifices that others make are sacrifices for themselves and not for you. And even if other people share your goals and dreams, until YOU reach those goals and dreams, you haven’t obtained success--they may have, but you haven’t.

Now, let me throw in some additional insights that were hidden in what I just told you:

1. relationships are work. They are never-ending, because the moment that you stop working on improving your relationship is the moment it becomes stagnant and falls apart.
2. It requires work on both sides. If one of you doesn’t put forth an effort then it will fall apart, no matter how hard the other person works to save it.
3. You can’t expect people to make sacrifices for you. –This goes two ways: you can’t expect them to sacrifice in your behalf, because as I already explained, that doesn’t work. You also can’t expect them to make sacrifices to have you without you making equal sacrifices for them. Purely one-sided relationships don’t work…there is no such thing as 100/0 relationship.—that isn’t a relationship, it’s one person pushing things on the other person.
4. Your goals are YOUR goals. When you get into a relationship with someone, there might come a point where you have gone above and beyond their expectations—you fulfilled their goals and dreams. But at that moment, they may not have quite fulfilled your goals and dreams yet. You can look at this in two ways: A) It would be easier for you to find someone who has equal expectations and goals and dreams, because then you will both feel you have achieved success and fulfillment at the same time. Or B) you could look at that and say: just because he or she is satisfied doesn’t mean that I am, and -I- need to put in more work and sacrifice more in order to get there. If #2 is the case, then you need to be upfront with the other person the moment that you realize that they are “over-satisfied”. You need to talk to them about where you would still like the relationship to go and see what trade-offs can be made in order to reach that point. This sounds contrary to what I mentioned previously, but they may need to sacrifice a little more in order to continue having you—to balance your relationship out.
   
5. Relationships must clearly take time to build. Anything that requires work, sacrifice, and goals/dreams/or plans will take a lot of time in order to come true. “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” it took a lot of work, sacrifice, and planning to become what it ultimately became, and when that pattern of work, planning and sacrifice became corrupted, it fell.

Attitude Affects Your Dating Life

As I am sure you have heard numerous times: “attitude determines everything”. Let’s face it: dating is hard; it is one of the hardest things you will ever go through simply because dating leads up to the hardest choice you will ever make (marriage).
I have stressed time and time on this blog that dating takes time. You can’t expect things to just fall into your lap, to meet that perfect guy or girl and to have courting them be easy it will take time and devotion. You have to work at it every day in order to be successful at dating (i.e. to meet your long term dating goals, usually marriage).
You also can’t be afraid of dating because of a fear of failure. Everyone will fail at least a couple times before they get good at a particular skill. Every athlete in the history of sports has had major defeats and setbacks that jarred them and made them question that what they were doing was the right thing to do. I am sure that you have felt lonely before; that you have questioned whether that young lady or young man liked you back; and you have probably felt frustrated about the whole "dating thing" and wished there were a better way.
All of these negative thoughts can bring you down.

“Attitude determines everything”, if you reflect on the negative aspects of your life, such as how you wish so desperately that you had a boyfriend or girlfriend, your life will be shaped by that desperation. You will come off to people you just met as though you are desperate and that you are starving for their attention. If, on the other hand, you reflect on how any day this week you might meet your future spouse, then your life will be shaped positively. You will be looking for that opportune moment to meet someone new, and you might even go out of your way just on the hope that that special someone is just around the corner.
Finding your future husband or wife is hard work. It takes years of sifting through dates to realize things about yourself and about who you want to marry, and then to prepare yourself to find and woo that person. Should you reflect on how hard it is though? I do not think we are meant to reflect on the difficulty of this task. In the beginning, when you fall in love, chemicals are activated in your body that heighten the experience and add a “magical” touch to your relationship. By this point in your relationship there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome before you actually marry that individual. I do not think that we are meant to reflect too heavily on how hard things are; we are meant to focus on making things a little better each day.

There is a common saying of which you have probably heard: “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. As you know, Rome was one of the greatest civilizations in ancient times. It took several hundred years for Rome to reach its height of greatness. Thousands of people devoted their lives to bringing it to that point.--If you want something “great” out of a relationship, then you will have to devote your whole life to it; of course relationships don’t end at marriage, they continue forever. Will it be hard? Of course.
However, rather than focus on how hard dating or having relationships is, you should focus on how much it is worth it to you.
Is it worth it to put up with hard times? Is it worth it to have to date ten jerks before finding one really amazing person? Is it worth it to fix your bad habits in order to please the guy or girl of your dreams? Is it worth it to feel lonely now, in order to motivate your to find that special someone?




Dating and having relationships is hard, but it is completely worth it in the end!
Try to remain optimistic. Whether you are happy or sad about your current situation, you are still going to be in your current situation, so why not be optimistic?
That brings up my final point: you will remain in your current situation until you change your situation. YOU have to change it. No one else can change for you. No one who doesn’t like you now will suddenly like you in the future unless you change; they aren’t going to change for you.
But you need to change for yourself and not for the guy or girl. When you change for yourself, you make lasting changes. When you change for other people, you revert to your old behavior when you stop trying to impress those other people. As your relationship progresses and you both mature, you will eventually realize that you never had to impress that young man or woman and you will stop trying to impress them and start acting normal. At that point, if you didn't change for the benefit of yourself, you will slip back into the kind of person you were before you attempted to impress him or her.
Even if someone changes in your behalf, unless they relate it back to themselves, their changes aren’t going to be lasting either. You should not expect or rely on other people to change in order to love you the way you are. You should not make demads of people that they change so that the two of you can get along better. Instead, do yourself a favor and make yourself in to the kind of person that will please the kind of person you want to marry.

Change is always hard, but it is always worth it. Keep that in mind as you decide from now on that you are going to change and adapt to get along with others rather than expect them to fix their problems to get along with you.

Why Honesty is So Important

Why Honesty is so Important

For whatever reason, when it comes to meeting new people or dating them, people like to over exaggerate or hide certain aspects about themselves. You might feel pressured to impress the other person so that they will take an interest in you, and that can lead you to say things that aren’t entirely true. There is a problem though with being dishonest even if it’s just a minor fib. More important than what you say during your interaction with other people is who you really are. Having a good and interesting character goes miles when it comes to building a good foundation for relationships.

Being honest means not telling people things about your self that aren’t 100% correct. This includes not telling little white lies or stretching the truth. It can be as simple as claiming an interest in something you really aren’t interested in or exaggerating the amount of money you make at your job.

There are three main reasons for why you shouldn’t be dishonest:

1. It can lead to a habit of lying
   It’s no surprise that when you lie you often have to lie more in order to cover for your other lies. The first few minutes you spend with someone new are going to be some of the most memorable. When you lie during those first few moments, the other person remembers what you say. In order to cover yourself from that experience you will either need to lie more, or come clean.
   Not to get too extreme, but lying can also lead you to have other bad habits simply because lying operates as a gateway to other bad behaviors.
   
2. It is actually unimpressive
   When people find out that you are lying they will not be impressed; in fact, their opinion of you will be lowered. It is also more in your favor, and is more interesting, to come across as independent (having your own opinion) from the viewpoints of those you speak to than to merely agree with everything that they say.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   It might seem as though having numerous commonalities with another person is in your favor when it comes to having a relationship with them. Although it might be true that you can build a bond with someone quicker by having several similarities, it isn’t in your favor to come across as uninteresting, or as merely being a follower (someone who simply agrees with everything and has no opinion on any matters).
3. It can cause you more problems
   Even if you manage to keep the lie going for a long period of time, it usually has several adverse effects later down the road. Take for instance if you lie about your debts or your salary: if you happen to marry someone who is under the impression that you are debt free and have a good job, it will come to them as a surprise when you beg them to pay off your debts with their money after marriage. This of course can put quite a few issues and conflicts into your relationship.
   You cannot see the future and although every lying situation is different, it almost always leads to a bad situation.
   

Nearly all people find honesty and as a more admirable trait than being agreeable. Integrity and honesty rank very high on most peoples’ lists of traits they desire in the opposite sex. By being honest whenever possible and upfront wherever appropriate, you can aid your chances of building an outstanding foundation in the kind of relationship that you wish you have. By being dishonest, how can you ever expect to build the kind of intimacy and trust necessary for a good relationship?