When thinking about the purpose of being in a relationship, a lot of people tend to overlook the fact that relationships shouldn’t be used to fill voids. Instead, they should be a way of adding more love and joy to an already full and satisfying life. By taking this approach, you’re not putting pressure on another person to “be your everything.” Rather, you’re looking to them to be a wonderful partner on your life’s amazing journey.
Given that healthy relationships are about giving love as much as receiving it, it’s important that you have plenty of self-love before you move beyond casual dating. This article will help you understand what self-love actually looks like by exploring five things you should enjoy about yourself before you decide to share your time and life with someone else.
Table of Contents
1. You should love your ability to love
Most people feel like they have a lot to offer in a relationship, but three of the best things you can give someone are acceptance, forgiveness, and patience. If you don’t already accept yourself, struggle to forgive yourself when you make mistakes, and are impatient with the process that accompanies personal development, it’s going to be close to impossible to offer these things to someone else.
2. You should love the way you look
Listen, you don’t have to look like a supermodel! Shoot, even most supermodels don’t look like supermodels once you strip off the make-up and remove the Photoshop techniques. Loving the way that you look simply means being able to name a few of your favorite features and feeling comfortable with your individuality. A lot of people find themselves in relationships that are less than what they deserve because they look for someone to validate their worth (physically or otherwise).
Sometimes manipulative people feed on that sense of neediness and tell people to want they want to hear only to take advantage of them in the end. A wise man once said that compliments should be confirmations, not revelations. That’s definitely something to keep in mind before entering into anything serious.
3. You should love your personality
The way a person looks may catch someone’s attention, but it’s their personality that holds it. If you’re constantly on the hunt for a relationship because you don’t like being alone, that is not a good enough reason. In fact, it’s a potentially toxic type of rationale. While some people are a lot more extroverted than others, everyone should be able to enjoy time outside of the presence of others.
Whether it’s your humor, intelligence, compassion, quirkiness, or some other quality, make sure that you’re clear on what makes you as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside. The best way to know what those things are is to spend some time by yourself. As they say, “when you love yourself, you are never alone”. And you know what? “They” were spot on.
4. You should love your social life
Hopefully, your next partner will have a great career, a wonderful relationship with their family, and a host of friends, adding up to them having a pretty active social life! The only way that will end up causing issues in your relationship is if you can’t say the same about your world. So, take some time and think about your life both inside and outside of work.
Is it all you could ever want or is it lacking in countless ways? Your future significant other should be able to go out with friends without you tagging along all of the time. That’s easy to do when you have a crew of your own. If you don’t love your social life, now is the time to work to change it.
5. You should love your future plans
If someone approached you right at this very moment and said they wanted to know your life goals but forbade you to say “to be in a relationship” or “to get married”, what would you say? The right person is going to look for someone who is ambitious about their future whether they are in a relationship or not. So, whether you remain single for the next three months or the next five years, you shouldn’t have so little going on that it feels like a death sentence. Being single means that you can live your life without compromise—and there are a lot of things to love about having that kind of freedom as you look towards the future!
