Quote from Jennifer Lee Woods on July 3, 2020, 8:12 pm

Are you jumping into singlehood? Did you just get out of a relationship or marriage and think now you’re ready to date?

What I have always done after any relationship has ended is spend some SERIOUS time reflecting. I look at what I did wrong in the relationship to evaluate my role in how it ended. Did I not give enough of my time? Was I not in the relationship 100%? Did I not make my significant other a priority? Did I not satisfy them enough, sexually, emotionally, spiritually? I am constantly working on myself. Just like our world of technology that is constantly changing, so are we as individuals.

Listen dating is hard; it takes effort. We all have lives, jobs, children, school, or whatever it may be. Knowing your putting for the best version of yourself can make dating so much more rewardable. So here are some questions you need to ask yourself when you’re trying to bring forth the best version of you.

1. Are you happy with yourself, truly? It’s the law of attraction. We attract what we put out into the universe. If you aren’t happy with yourself, you aren’t going to attract what you’re really looking for. You need to go back to the beginning and evaluate why you aren’t happy. What’s keeping you from being happy? Is it yourself or someone from your past? You will need to address that before you can offer the best of you to someone. No one is interested in dating someone that’s unhappy, complains about their life all the time, life is short people. If we are going to date someone, we want to date someone that’s happy with themselves.
2. Are you carrying baggage from a previous relationship? This is hard because pretty much every person does to some degree. But here’s the thing, nobody wants to start dating someone to find out you’re not over your ex. I have been in that type of relationship, and it feels like there are 3 people dating each other, you, the ex, and the other person. Now, if it was a really bad relationship that had cheating, abuse, etc., you should truly consider seeing a professional first. There are thousands of really, really good psychiatrists out there to help you. You have gone through something traumatic. If you don’t make an effort to address it, I can promise you that two things will happen. One, you aren’t bringing the best version of you into a new relationship, and two, the next person will either be just like the last person you dated and/or that person will have to deal with your the baggage of what you suffered from your last relationship. Let’s face it, it’s not really fair to that person, is it? Would it be fair to you if the situation was reversed? No, it wouldn’t. I always ask myself, how would I feel if someone did this to me?
3. What do you have to offer someone? You don’t have to be a lawyer or a doctor to say I have a lot to offer someone. We are human beings; we feel with love and kindness from our hearts. Yes, it’s important to have a job, but it’s not everything, and neither is the amount you have in your bank account. Are you lazy? No one likes someone that’s lazy. Are you motivated in life to want to advance in your career? We like to see people that are motivated in life that are constantly striving to do better in life. It shouldn’t matter what someone’s career title is or the size of their house. If those things matter to you, you should really ask yourself what do you have, what are you needing in life? Material things are only short term highs. If the shoe was on the other foot, how would you feel if the person you were dating asked themselves those things about you? How would you feel if you were really interested in someone and they weren’t interested in you because you didn’t make six figures, or because you only lived in an apartment and not a house? Doesn’t feel that good does it?

Here are some questions I ask myself when I’ve started dating someone that are important to me:

1. How are they as a person? Nice? Kind? Caring?
2. If they have kids, what kind of parent are they? You can learn a lot about someone by how they treat their children.
3. Are they motivated? I’m not interested in someone who is lazy.
4. Are they fit and healthy? I’m not looking for someone whose sloppy and doesn’t care about how they look.
5. Do they have good morals and values? I’m not looking for someone that’s doesn’t match my own morals and values. Been there done that tough lesson learned
6. Have they been in a lot of short-term relationships? nothing long term? Why not?
7. If they were previously married? Have they learned from their previous marriage?
8. Are they financially stable? This is for people at least 35 or older. Im in my 40's I'm not interested in having to buy groceries for someone because they don't know how to manage their money.
9. What do they have to offer you? What value do they bring to you? The person you date should bring to the relationship things that will make you a better person. See my article, "I want to be inspired by someone"
10. Do they have goals? I want to be inspired by someone. If you don’t have dreams and goals, as they say at NASA, "Houston we have a problem"

“Dating is about finding out who you are and who others are. If you show up in a masquerade outfit, neither is going to happen.”

Henry Cloud