5 Tips To Find The Love Of Your Dreams
📸 by @reaganaleea
We’re so glad you’re here! This is where we’ll share tips + tricks for wellness, as well as travel hacks and info about our favorite places, our favorite travel brands, and how to cross off your bucket-list-travel-destinations without it costing an arm + a leg. This is also where we’ll share what works for our relationship, how we face challenges together, and how we keep our love fresh + hot.
A quick recap, shall we?
Colin and I met on Raya. Yep! A dating app.
Actually… let me back it up a bit.
In 2020 I was SO SINGLE and SO convinced that I would never find my person. Colin was in the same mindset as well. I told my brother that I was “okay” with simply being an aunt for the rest of my life. Colin told his mom that he truly didn’t think that his person existed. He and I had, basically, given up.
Over dinner at Baltaire in Brentwood, my girlfriends told me I was nuts and convinced me to give it one more shot — with a catch: I had to date, and I had to go about it in a way that I had never tried before.
The first truth: I had never dated. I had gone on a few dates, but never actively dated. It always sounded like an exhausting waste of time, so I never did it. I would make excuses and avoid it at all costs.
The second truth: I had done a ton of work on myself, figured out my values, articulated what I wanted in a partner and had been trying to live up to that standard in my own actions + behaviors… but I was telling myself an insane story about lack and that I had “a bad picker.” All understandable based on my track record, but it was time to tell a new story.
The third truth: I had never used a dating app, nonetheless, had a profile on any of them. So, the girls set me up with a Raya account, and my homework was 2 dates per week with different people.
Fourth truth: I did what I said I was going to do. I went on all the dates, met all the new people, made new friends, and I was exhausted. It was like speed dating, but for 2 straight months. I went on more than 2 dates per week, and kept my promise to the babes. Some dates were great; other’s were duds. A couple of them were 2nd date material. None of them were boyfriend material. Some felt like job interviews, while others were immediate friendships. Locking in on someone’s values and whether they aligned with mine (or not) became really easy. Which then made it really easy to communicate and end the thing on a respectful note.
And then, “boom.” After 2 months on the app, I matched with Colin. It was a done deal from the first “hello.”
There's this thing that everyone says about meeting "the one" - essentially, "when you know, you know." I always rolled my eyes and responded with something to the effect of "yeah fuckin’ right.."
But, then it happened to me, and I'm one of those people who tells this story and says, "when you know, you know."
Why the diatribe? Because, like so many people, I had lost hope. It was a sad, lonely place to be, and I lived there for quite a while. I decided to give it one more shot, and little did I know that the “one more shot” would get me to the finish line. Same goes for Colin.
If you find yourself in that hopeless place that I am all too familiar with, try these 5 things:
Seek Clarity. If you don’t know what you want, how are you going to get it? I wrote down exactly what I wanted my life to look like in 5 years. Exactly. I got detailed too - down to how I wanted my sheets to feel every morning when I woke up next to the man of my dreams. I wrote down what I hoped for in terms of our shared values, our super-steamy sex life, how we spent time, our shared dreams. All of it. Write it down in the notes section of your phone and read it often. (ProTip: I did this for my career too).
Celibacy for 6-12 months. Yep! No sexy time preferred. Clarity comes with deep focus. If your hormones are going nuts all the time and (this is scientifically proven) you’re getting attached to people that aren’t your forever person, how are you going to think clearly when your forever person comes along? Keep it G rated until you’re 100% certain that you’ve got your 5 year vision down to a T. Then meet your person and y’all can get down to a Tee ;)
Do all the things. You will become like the 5 people that you spend the most time with, so spend time with people and in places that support your vision. If you want to end up with a surfer, but you don’t spend time at the beach, it will probably never happen. If you want to have a life with someone that is financially free, but you’re swimming in credit card debt, it’s time to spend time learning about money and your relationship with money, and get out of debt. If you want to live your life globetrotting and traveling to incredible destinations with your partner and your family, but you’ve got a 9-5 job in a cubicle, it’s time to start implementing a new career path that supports your dreams and your vision.
Be patient. All of this takes time. Money flows where attention goes. Same goes for relationships. If all of your attention is focused on photoshopping selfies for Instagram, rather than getting your shit together, you won’t see progress any time soon. If your focus is on becoming the person that you’re looking for, you’ll get there faster.
This will be hard. You’re going to change in this process. It’s exciting and scary. Prepare yourself to grow out of friendships, and leave old habits that don’t serve you behind. Suffering is inevitable. Question is: Do you want to continue to suffer in the way that you’re familiar with, or explore something new?
Love y’all, and thanks for stopping by!
xoS
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