The Irritating Yet Necessary Dating Fundamentals You Forgot

OK, so let’s have this conversation. But I’m a business coach, so I’m going to use language my blog readers will appreciate.

Yes, I’m going here. Sort your apps out. Boundaries, and putting yourself first are mission critical in anyones’ life. However, if you are single and you’re also in business, that means the buck stops with you.

You have more at stake than just you, and it’s really important as you level up in your business that your entire ecosystem comes with you. Otherwise you break it. 

So if you’re single and dating, and in business – factor this time spend in as a priority activity you enjoy, like gym or reading or self care. If you fail to leave yourself enough time to do it properly, you risk rushing it. 

And things you create in scarcity, breed more scarcity.Not getting it yet?Be slow to hire, quick to fire. 

It is not your job to decide if you are a good fit for this person. 

Your job is deciding if they are a good fit for YOU. Work on letting go of attachment to the outcome. This applies until you are old and grey and will serve you well if you’re not the first of you two to leave this world. I’m not even kidding. Stop trying to control the behaviour of others, you will end up permanently disappointed as you have not only limited context and back story, but you cannot control all the variables. 

You don’t need to invest a lot in meeting one person.

Go and have a freaking coffee with them. Or go walk through a park and feed a duck. ‘Dating’ is fundamentally an artificially created environment with expectations set up around it that are wildly different even if you cross a single town over. Make your own rules.

There is no book. Just clearly set out your expectations. Remember – as your personal boundaries and ability to emotionally regulate improves, the need for social conventions lessens. 

Most dating advice online is geared toward women with anxious tendencies, looking to attract men with avoidant tendencies.

Just because there are many men and women with anxious and avoidant attachments, doesn’t mean the relationship coaches are always on the money. Read ‘Attached’, by Dr Amir Levine. Your entire life is a journey in self actualisation so don’t fuck it up just because your spidey senses are tingling at the thought of nice compliments and someone blowing your phone up on the regular.

Do you have a secure, avoidant, or anxious attachment? Find out, but don’t use it as an excuse to stop dating if it’s something you want in your life. Just learn what triggers you, and communicate about it. 

If you want to attract someone with excellent personal habits and a great mindset who is constantly working on their stuff, you don’t need to be a personal development guru or sign up for therapy.

I don’t know why they call it ‘Work on Yourself’. I think the ability to buy resources and work on being a better human as a hobby, instead of hunting food and berries, is super cool and a sign of my privilege. It should be called, ‘Have Fun Getting to Know Yourself.’

I’m so lucky to be born in the time I am and if I can level up on all the Amazon Kindle or Audible resources, I will 100% do that before I throw 10 grand at some hot dating coach to take me on the exact same journey.

A dating coach will essentially teach you the same stuff as a mindset-led business coach as a sales coach as a therapist as an energy healer as a life coach would.

Be better. Emotionally regulate. Learn who you are. Retain your lessons. Buy the books. But don’t think you’re a better person than anyone who isn’t ‘doing the work’. You’re not. 

You don’t need to wait until you’ve ‘done the work’ to be someone who is incredibly loveable and a great partner.

Don’t delay meeting people because you’re broken. We’re all broken. Lose the story, get outcome driven so you’re looking at your achievements along the way… and you’ll probably start to enjoy the process of heading there. A few years ago, I dated someone briefly who served no other lesson than to teach me what I will never tolerate in my world as an adult. It also highlighted to me the amount of work I’d done to be able to identify it so quickly and detach myself with love and respect for them. 

There has been research done on SO many aspects of successful relationships, you can just learn your lessons by reading.

John Gottmann wrote about the Four Horsemen. They will end your relationship, or prevent it being as fulfilling as it could otherwise have been. Learn everything about them you can:

• Criticism
• Contempt
• Defensiveness
• Stonewalling

Want to know what should be on your non negotiables list? That your partner is willing and open to a conversation about these four bad boys as they come up.

Know what you want.

John DeMartini has some incredible exercises on figuring out what we ACTUALLY value in life. Believe it or not, every human on earth tends to find a way to surround ourselves in these things – regardless of what we shame ourselves for not having achieved yet. Until you know what you want in LIFE, you will find it very difficult to explain to a potential partner what you could bring to the table and build in partnership.

Are you perfect? Reflect regularly. If the pattern is yours, work on breaking it. If it’s theirs, weigh that up as a factor. 

Are you unsure if you should keep seeing somebody?Decide how someone is making you feel.Decide if they irrevocably breached your personal boundaries.Go through all the information.Is there any part of you that would like to continue the potential relationship?Would you still truly be happy dating them, if that ‘one issue’ were able to be solved? Then have a face to face conversation with them about it.

Words can create so much. Communication may be the key, but it is unlocking the door where kindness and generosity is kept. And guess what some of the highest factors of your future happiness are?

And if they don’t show up for you, remember the final irritating but necessary thing you need to know:

The number one factor in the success of a relationship is proximity.

Do they show up for you?Do they stay in the room?Do they hear you?Do you feel safe?

And now, I’ll leave you with my biggest lesson of all, from the last two decades of working on myself and my relationships.

​Deep down, we ARE all the same.​For the most part, you ARE just like everyone else. 

We have the same needs to be met.We all want to be loved.We all want connection, to feel respected, to know we are safe and know who our people are.But that doesn’t mean everyone wants to have their needs met in the same language as you.

Sure, work out your Love Language. But remember sometimes people just wanna Netflix and chill, or be married in the next year, and your job is to set your OWN boundaries around what you’re looking for, not to judge those parts of the dating pool who have different intentions or timelines to your own.

The places you don’t have clarity on who you are, and what you need, are opportunities to work out what YOUR values are. This can mean less time spent fulfilling your needs in slightly less emotionally healthy ways.

And that, my friends, is what spawned an entire generation of therapists in every modality you can think of, specialising in moving you through all kinds of things in your past, present and future.

But it doesn’t mean you need all that. Just read the words of those who went before you. Follow some cool instagram accounts.. like mine. And remember – you do not need to ‘do the work’, to have an emotionally fulfilling and happy dating life.

Living your best life IS doing the work.

Stay sparkly, ​Kat xx