6 Easy Ways To Overcome Insecurity In Dating And Find Love
Number 3 Is the Best
While you were busy completing your education or working on advancing your career, you hoped that love would come naturally. After all, you are a great catch. You are an educated, beautiful, and intelligent woman. You have a loving family, you are financially stable, and your friends like you. However, you find yourself single and struggling to overcome insecurity in dating.
After trying to find a partner without success, it's just natural that you find dating dreadful. Many accomplished women feel as you do. Continuing dating when you feel so discouraged, will cause you to be more frustrated and perhaps lose hope that you will ever find what you truly want, love and a life partner.
Overcoming insecurity in dating won't come with trying the same old solutions
Could it be that you don't feel competent about your dating skills? How can you enjoy going out on dates when you feel confused about love, dating, and relationships? It's completely understandable that you may feel anxious when you go out on a date.
When you are not relaxed, you won't enjoy yourself, and thus you will fail to show your best self, your true self, to the guy in front of you. Instead, you will hide your real personality, which will make it hard to connect with the guy in front of you.
Besides, anxiety causes a lot of miscommunication in relationships. Instead of being able to read the signs that will help you know how the date goes, you may start overanalyzing what happened. Overanalyzing will lead to further confusion.
Lowering your standards
Another issue that may stem from the lack of confidence when it comes to dating is that you may start working too hard for a relationship with one guy who is somewhat OK. You hope that your hard work will pay off because, for God's sake, you don't want to go out on dating anymore. Who wants to put themselves into the situations where they don't feel competent?
Instead of continuing with the dating process, you settle for this guy who doesn't really inspire you. Basically, you overlook many red flags and lower your standards in the hope that this one relationship will work out if you only try harder.
If you have a few of these experiences, it totally makes sense that you become discouraged. You may have so many good things going for you, but when this one crucial thing, romantic love, is missing in your life, it can feel excruciating.
The fact that friends and family tell you that you are beautiful and that any guy should be lucky to have you doesn't make it easier. It makes you even more frustrated. You wonder, "What's wrong with me? Am I broken inside."
You continue overanalyzing and thinking that you can fix the situation only if you work harder on this. After all, you worked hard on your education and career, and this led you to success.
The problem is that hard work, problem-solving, and logically figuring things out don't work when it comes to dating. Continuing with those tactics will just further diminish your sense of competency when it comes to dating and love.
Struggles of single women
It can be even more difficult when everyone around you is hitched. Doesn't it seem that happy couples and families are more in your face when you feel so lonely?
Perhaps you even find yourself in a situation when you need to be a bridesmaid to a friend who's getting married. Remember Bridesmaids, a funny and sad movie that illustrates struggles of a single woman? Anne, the leading role, was asked to be a maid of honor in her friend's wedding. She portrays struggles of modern single women. Her experiences are not uncommon although they may have been a bit exaggerated for the comedy factor.
When you see these examples in media, you may think as if there are no good men left anymore. These myths won't help you overcome insecurity in dating. You are by no means not the only one who goes through this. So many intelligent, educated, and beautiful women experience the same struggles. It's completely natural that you feel discouraged about dating.
Now, you may wonder if you will ever find love. I want you to know that if you learn how to tap into feeling lovable and shift how you look at things, you can overcome insecurity in dating and feel much more empowered to go after what you want, love.
It's totally possible to feel confident when it comes to love and dating just as you already feel competent in many other aspects of your life. You can start enjoying the process of dating and feel hopeful and excited. Keep reading for six tips that will help you learn how to feel competent in love and relationships with men.
These six tips will help you overcome insecurity in dating, so you can enjoy the process and be able to find love
It's understandable that you may be feeling frustrated and you may be at the place of wanting to give up on dating and looking for love. But, please don't give up. It's time to try a new approach to this. Just as you've accomplished so many things in life, you can figure this out too.
However, overcoming insecurity in dating can't be achieved by using the same strategies as you have in your career, education, or other achievements in life. You've been doing so much to succeed, and it's natural that you think you need to prove yourself in this arena too. Analyzing, problem-solving, over-thinking, and working hard will not pay off when it comes to dating.
Instead, learning to feel lovable and to change the way you position yourself can help you feel confident and enjoy the process of dating. Overcoming insecurity in dating will open up so many doors for you. You will be able to enjoy the process of dating and be able to relax more, which naturally leads to more success.
1. Learn to connect with your feeling of being lovable
One of the reasons why you may not be confident when it comes to dating may be that you don't feel worthy of love. Not feeling worthy of love is one of the main issues that my clients are experiencing. When you feel unworthy, you naturally overcompensate by working hard to prove yourself worthy.
The solution to feeling unworthy is learning to tap into the feeling of being lovable. You already are loveable. You just need to remember it and relish that feeling.
The more you do this practice, the more worthy you will feel. Many of my clients know that they are loveable, but they have a hard time feeling it. And, feeling loveable will help you overcome insecurity in dating.
Practice that will help you feel lovable
In therapy with my clients, I help them get in touch with their feelings. I guide them through meditation to remember the people in life that gave you that sense of being loved. Those could be parents, grandparents, siblings, and so on. Similarly, you too can go down memory lane and remember these moments of feeling loved and cherished.
Then, bring the practice to the present moment by observing your body reactions to these memories. You may breathe deeper, you may have a smile on your face, or you may feel your chest expanding. These reactions are individual and different for everyone. You can observe your body reactions when you remember these sweet memories.
Stay with these sensations and savor them. Remind yourself, "I'm loveable. I'm enough. People love me without me having to do anything. They love me just for me." Repeating these words, remembering these memories, and feeling your body sensations during this process will help you reinforce feeling lovable. You can always go back to this practice when you need.
Next time when you go on a date with this knowledge and feeling, it will help you exude confidence, which is very attractive to men. Then, when you have positive interactions with them, this will further help you feel lovable and confident. You can tap into these resources when you need to overcome insecurity in dating or other areas aspects of your life.
2. Sit back and enjoy the ride
Another obstacle to dating success is feeling hopeless. When you try so hard and don't get good results, it makes complete sense that you feel discouraged. Instead of continuing working hard to get love, what would happen if you had a playful approach?
Although serious hard work led you to succeed in school or your career, this kind of work won't yield the same results in dating. Applying principles of logic, strategizing, and overthinking will lead you to further confusion. Overcoming insecurity in dating will be impossible if you continue like this.
Playfulness is the way to fun and success in dating
Instead, you can adopt a playful attitude. How can you do that? First, forget all your agendas when you go out on a particular date. Of course, your goal is to find love and a lifetime monogamous partner. But, when you agree to meet a specific guy and go out with him, your only agenda can be to have fun that evening, meet a new person, and get to know him.
In the worst case scenario, he may provide you with the material for entering the story-telling contest of the worst possible date. He also may be the love of your life, or he can turn into a good friend whose friend may be your future life partner. For now, you are just meeting new people and having fun. Let them show you what they've got for you.
Playfulness will help you relax and overcome insecurities in dating. To be able to apply playfulness in dating, I suggest my clients practice playfulness it in other aspects of life. Joke with people, play with children, take a dance or art class and so on.
I also suggest that you start up conversations with random people you meet in a coffee shop, grocery store, and so on. Doing so will help you feel more comfortable, casual, and playful so that you can be playful on a date.
3. Position yourself as someone who is interviewing people for the most crucial role in your life
You've spent decades in trying to prove yourself. Our parents raised us to feel that we need to measure up and be good girls. A natural consequence is that you think that you need to measure up by doing something special, looking beautiful, or behaving in a certain way to be successful in dating. But, this just causes more anxiety and insecurity.
After all, you jumped through hoops to get all the best grades in school and to be successful in your career. Shouldn't you do the same for love? Absolutely NOT. Remember, you are loveable, so you don't need to prove yourself. Besides, trying to prove your worth to someone doesn't work if they don't already see it.
Be open to see what he has to offer
Instead of proving yourself to a potential partner, I suggest that you let him show you what he has to offer. If he wants you, let him show you that he can be the love of your life. This advice goes along with playfulness and feeling lovable.
When you position yourself like an interviewer, you will feel powerful. Thus you will be able to enjoy the process more. After all, you are interviewing people for the most important position, your love life partner.
Then, sit back and enjoy the unveiling. Be curious. How will he make you feel? What will he do to wow you? Doing this will help you overcome insecurity in dating significantly. You are not the one who needs to perform.
4. Be proactive and open about what you are after
Somehow we are raised to feel ashamed by the fact that we want partnership and love in our lives. We feel that we are not supposed to say what we want openly. If you go out on a date and don't express yourself honestly, the guy will get mixed messages from you.
I've seen many women struggle with this. My clients think that this will make them come across as needy or desperate. It's not true. You are not telling a guy that you want him, but you are telling him what your standards are.
There are so many men that want the same thing as you, but when you don't express yourself openly, they don't feel comfortable to be upfront either. Thus, you may wind up in these so-called games. When this happens, you naturally may wind up frustrated and exhausted.
How to be open to and show confidence
When a guy asks you what is it that you are looking for from dating, you can respond openly. Moreover, you can include some of that playfulness and say something blunt like, "I want to find the love of my life. I'm interviewing only the best applicants."
Then you can smile. Saying this will make him feel flattered, and he will also see that you have high standards and that he can play games with you. After all, you invited him for an interview.
5. When going gets tough, focus on good things that are going on in your life.
Of course, you may feel discouraged at times in spite of all the right measures. When one thing in your life brings you down, I would suggest focusing emotionally on other things in life.
Step away from the area that causes you distress. In this case, we are talking about love and dating. When you feel discouraged about dating, you can have a period of stopping your efforts briefly until you elevate your mood.
Instead of continuing with futile efforts, you can focus on other aspects of life that are going well. It can be work, your family life, friendships, hobbies, etc. Focus emotionally on how well these things are going for you. Enjoy them. Spend time doing activities related to them, and you will feel better about dating too.
It's important to know that things in life go up and down, and feeling better about dating and love will happen again. Then, you can continue with your efforts. Most likely, you will have new insights that will help you overcome insecurity in dating by then.
6. Don't take things personally when they don't work out
I get it. It can be tough when a guy that you really like doesn't like you back to the same degree. But what's important to remember is that your self-worth isn't tied to one person's opinion. If it didn't work out with one person, it doesn't mean you are deficient. It may not even be that he didn't like you. Perhaps it was wrong timing for two of you.
How to see things differently?
You can see it as you are lucky that things are showing up early, so you don't have to waste your time with this person. Remember you are "interviewing them for the position." This just means they are not the right candidate.
You can overcome insecurity in dating and enjoy
I know it seems like a long and perhaps a scary journey to get your love. Although you feel hopeless, frustrated, and exhausted from negative experiences, you can get through this. Shifts can happen, and you don't have to wait for too long.
Just as you worked so hard and accomplished so much in your career and education, you can feel competent and confident in dating and love too if you follow these six steps. When you are proactive and self-assured, you can achieve desired goals much faster. Be Here & Now Counseling can help you work on more profound issues that prevent you from feeling confident or ready for love. I'm here to support you through your journey.
I will help you manage difficult feelings that arise and provide guidance and different perspective that can be very helpful through this journey. I utilize body-mind integrated mindfulness-based psychotherapy to help you get in touch with your feelings and gain more confidence.
Such a complete and meaningful article. Thanks a lot for sharing it, it was really nice to read.