Breakup Advice

You’ve been single for a while now. Or you feel yourself approaching or are in the middle of a breakup. And you start to wonder…“Will I ever find love?”

This is one of those haunting questions. Even when we are not focusing on it consciously, it is in the back of our minds. And it has a huge impact on how we think about and act in relationships and in the rest of our lives.

The fact is that there is no guarantee that any of us will find love, especially the kind of love we fantasize about. And that is a very tough reality to accept.

However, like so many dynamics of relationships, there is a paradox here.

You might have heard the old cliché about how a watched pot never boils. In other words, sometimes when you focus too much on the endpoint of a process, it makes that endpoint much harder to achieve. Yet when you focus instead on the process itself and let go of the endpoint, suddenly it can happen before you know it.

Imagine two weightlifters.

• Weightlifter A stares at the weight for hours wondering “Will I ever be able to lift this weight?”
• Weightlifter B looks at the weight, wonders for a few minutes, and then spends the next couple hours working out.

Which one do you think has the better chance of ultimately lifting the weight?

The lesson about relationships here is that, when it comes to love, although it is tempting to fantasize and hope and wonder “Will I ever find love?” in the long run that activity, in itself, doesn’t really help us. I’m not saying you shouldn’t think about that now and then. But there are things you can do that are more likely to benefit you.

So when that question pops in your head, as it naturally will from time to time, it’s OK to let it linger for a bit. You might even want to get out your journal or diary and write out your feelings about it. But then, it’s good to get in the habit of making the switch from focusing your energy on the endpoint to investing it in actions that will actually help you develop.

With practice, you might even be able to create a sort of reflex where each time you think “Will I ever find love?” you more and more quickly switch that thought in your mind to “What can I do to increase my chances of finding love?”

It’s a sort of replacement maneuver.

“Will I ever find love?” —-> “What can I do to increase my chances of finding love?”

The questions you ask help determine which direction you go in. The second question is often a more constructive one than the first.

Nobody knows if or when you or anyone else will find love for certain. But what we do know is that the more you work on the things that ready you for love, the better off you will be. Hopefully the many tools and resources available – such as those that we recommend in our store – can assist you in making the best use of that time that, until now, you spent just hoping, fantasizing and dreaming.

Be like Weightlifter B in the earlier example. Take a moment to let yourself feel your feelings. Don’t run away from them. But also don’t dwell on them forever. Build the habit of making that switch from “It’s time to experience the curiosity and concern about my future.” to “It’s time to get to work!”

The best part of that plan is that, ultimately, even if you don’t find the love you want, you will still end up a better person. You might even discover that there are other things in life that you value in addition to that kind of love that you’ve always wanted. Or you might develop into someone whose idea of what love is all about is different than it was before.