One of the most universal desires we have as human beings is to find love.
Most of us want to find romantic love. To find a soul mate, someone with whom we can share our innermost thoughts and feelings. Someone to share the joys and sorrows of our daily lives and to walk beside us in this great adventure called life.
Often though, in our quest to find love we encounter many obstacles. They say the path to true love never runs smoothly, and this could also be said of the path to happiness, fulfillment, and emotional freedom. As with any big goal worth reaching, the goal of finding someone to share your life with takes effort.
Much of the effort required is internal. Fine-tuning your thoughts and expectations is far more important than scouring the personal ads endlessly.
Here are some of the main obstacles that can make it hard for us to find love;
• Having unrealistic expectations. Hard as it can be to accept, life is not a movie or a fairytale. It is better. Living ‘happily ever after’ would mean missing out on all the triumphs, tragedies, joys, and sorrows that make life real and interesting. ‘Happily ever after’ is boring, and ‘Prince or Princess Charming’ does not exist. We are all human beings with flaws as well as good qualities. Waiting for the perfect partner just means missing out on the joy of getting to know a lot of potentially good partners.
• Not having clear and reasonable expectations. If you don’t know what qualities you want in a partner, you won’t know when you find someone who has them.
• Forming a relationship with somebody just because they want you to. Don’t fall into the trap of being with someone because they desperately want you to be with them. If it is not what you want too, then it is the wrong choice.
• The flip side of the above point is forming a relationship with someone that seems reluctant to be with you. If your partner is only with you because you have talked them into it, you will never feel secure. Break free and give yourself a chance of finding someone who wants to be with you as much as you want to be with them.
• Not believing you are worthy of a good relationship. If you feel that you don’t deserve to be loved, respected, and treated well, you have very little chance of creating a relationship that will provide these things.
• Choosing relationships based on what you think you ‘should’ want or what other people expect. Just because you can check all the boxes in a magazine survey about the ‘right’ partner doesn’t make them right for you. Equally, just because a potential partner looks great in the eyes of your friends and family doesn’t mean that you will be happy in a relationship with them.
• Excluding potential partners based on other people’s ideas of what is right or wrong. Have you ever dismissed the possibility of a relationship based on height, age, or skin color? You could be missing some wonderful potential mates by doing this.
• Settling. Deciding to be with someone because you are afraid of being alone, or because you believe this relationship is ‘as good as it gets’ is seriously short-changing yourself. Be clear about what you want, know that you can have it, keep your mind and options open, be realistic, and don’t settle!
You can find love, and have a wonderful, fulfilling relationship. Happily ever after is just a fairytale, but true love and lasting happiness is not. Believe me, I know!
I'm Amanda Harvey, and for as long as I can remember, I've had a passion for personal development and empowerment. My focus has always been on making life as good as it can be, both for myself and others.
Early in my career, I expressed this focus through teaching ballroom dancing. I loved the way that it helped people come alive and take their minds off their everyday worries, as well as giving them confidence and bringing them joy.
After managing a dance studio in Sydney, Australia for a few years, my desire to experience more of the world started me on the journey of living abroad with my new husband (not so new anymore…. married 22 years in 2020).
Having completed my Masters Degree in Communications, my career developed as a coach and trainer with both individuals and companies. After several years in various parts of Europe, our wanderlust led us to Asia, and we have been living in Taiwan since just before the arrival of the first of our three children in 2004.
I ran a successful online life coaching business, choosing-life-my-way.com, from 2010 to 2015. The work I did with people through the site, and the feedback I got was wonderful, but time constraints led me to close down the site in 2015. With the increased demand for in-person services for local clients, and the time I wanted to spend with my growing family, I followed my own advice: We can have it all, but not always all at once.
Fast forward to 2020 and I am now launching mindsettable.com, my brand new site. With all the years of rich and varied experience, I am focusing on bringing to you the most valuable, specific and effective form of training that I have discovered. Mindset training zeroes in on the biggest factor that determines the success or failure of anything that we undertake, and I am so excited to work with people like you, who know that our lives can be as amazing as we want them to be. If we only decide to make it so.