Most of us want a fulfilling lifelong partnership with someone to love and be loved by. We want to be happy in a healthy, committed relationship, yet we don’t seem to know how.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. said it best in his Life’s Little Instruction Book, “Choose your life’s mate carefully. From this one decision will come ninety percent of your happiness or misery.”

So, how do we go about choosing our Life Partner? When you’re single, you can do a lot more than you realize to prepare for a successful and lasting relationship.

1. Know who you are and what you want.

Understand your values, life purpose, temperament, strengths and weaknesses. Sharpen your clarity about your life vision, relationship requirements, needs, and wants. Use this information to scout out, sort through, and screen potential partners. Like an iceberg, we are typically aware only of the tip, while our success and happiness depends upon what lies below the surface.

2. Learn how to get what you want.

Assess the information, tools, and skills you will need and acquire them. Become conscious of your attitudes and choose them effectively. Develop creative strategies and action plans. Remember, “When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

3. Be the one to choose.

Take initiative and responsibility for your outcomes, instead of simply reacting to people who choose you. Initiate contact and seek to create what you want in your life without limiting yourself to what you can see in front of you.

4. Balance your heart with your head.

Make your relationship choices consciously, with your vision, values, goals, and requirements in mind, as well as chemistry and attraction. Take the time that you need to determine if a potential partner can meet your “non-negotiables”.

5. Be ready and available for commitment.

Live your life and bring your dating strategy into alignment with how ready you really are. If you are not quite ready for commitment, stay single, focus on your life, and date nonexclusively for fun. If you are ready for and seeking a committed relationship, stay available. Continue to scout out, and evaluate potential partners.

6. Understand the “Law of Attraction.”

Assume that “what’s inside shows up on the outside.” Attract the partner that you want by developing yourself and living the life that you want.

7. Gain relationship knowledge and skills.

Prepare for the love of your life by learning about relationships, improving your relationship skills, and deepening your relationships with your family, friends, and colleagues. Date for fun and practice. Take more emotional risks. Read about relationships. Get relationship coaching help. Take relationship classes and workshops.

8. Create a support community.

Isolated singles become lonely in their relationships when they focus on a partner to meet all their social and emotional needs. Fill your life with the love and connection that you need, with friends of both genders, and be open to their support. Develop a network that will support you in finding your life partner and beyond.

9. Practice assertiveness.

To get what you really want, develop the ability to say “No” to what you don’t want. Take care of yourself in your relationships by learning to ask for what you want and need, and to identify and enforce your boundaries.

10. Be a “Successful Single”.

Live your life vision and purpose while you are single, without putting your life on hold waiting for a relationship to happen. The best way to find your life partner is to be a happy, successful single person living the life that you really want.
Pursue your goal of a relationship while living life fully, in the present, and letting go of your attachment to future outcomes.

katherin scott, the dating coach, author and speaker coaches singles worldwide and teaches seminars and workshops to help people empower themselves to find love and happiness. access free downloads, articles, assessments and katherin’s ezine at http://www.katherinscott.com.

Related posts:

1. Eight Steps to Finding Love – The 2009 Dating Plan New Year’s Eve is coming fast. You’ll blow the horns, make a few toasts and get streamers in your hair. It’ll be another New Year’s Party with no one you really want to kiss at midnight. No love to share it all with. Looking forward to that? Well, you can change your love life by […]…
2. Get Back Together With Your Partner – The 5 Important … When you are in a place where you have suffered a breakup, whether it was consensual or otherwise, you are going to feel angry, sad, disappointed, lost and despairing. After all of that, you are also going to come to a frame of mind where you are wondering how to get back together with your […]…
3. Dating Advice: End the Cycle of Failed Relationships and … Are you tired of starting new relationships, getting emotionally attached, getting hurt, and breaking up? Would you like to find a better way without resigning yourself to staying single? Despite our best intentions and efforts, things sometimes just don’t work out. People can fail once or twice due to any number of unforeseen factors. But, […]…
4. Love Life-Learn How To Make Your Relationship Better Making your love life better is a definite way to make you and your partner live a better life. Love making may appear like a distant memory that occurred for some when they were young teenagers full of unconvinced sexual liveliness. Now that you have finally grown up, have a successful career, and barely enough […]…
5. Laboring To Love An Abusive Mate: Not Ready To Leave Your … You walked in late one night from hanging out with your friends, may be it was work, or visiting with relatives, “Whatever you were doing, you are late!” your partner shouts. You ask him what is he so angry about. You tell him that you are a grown woman and you can do whatever you […]…
6. Love Sprang To Life And She Captured My Heart With credit card in hand, I pushed the button officially becoming a member of a dating site. Immediately I was given my first date choices and the ability to email each one or just give them a wink that I was interested. Confidently I emailed one person that might be compatible, only to receive an […]…
7. Are the Secrets to Your Spouse’s Love Life in Their … Nowadays, almost everyone uses the Internet on a regular basis. From such people, almost everyone have (at least) one e-mail account. And from all the people using an e-mail account regularly, trust me… almost everyone of them will eventually allow some of his/hers personal secrets to somehow get into their accounts. In other words… we […]…
8. Bad Economy, Great Love Life? Does love need money to flourish, or is a tighter and deeper connection made when a relationship must make do with fewer economic resources? Ask a roomful of people and you’ll hear passionate arguments on both sides. Must we all agree? Maybe not. But what about the two partners in a relationship? The following are […]…
9. Stop Your Breakup Today to Start a Lifetime of Love Breakups with boyfriends and husbands are one of the most emotionally draining and physically exhausting ordeals women go through. We’ve all been there – the endless tears, sleepless nights, obsessive thoughts, overwhelming depression. If you’re in the middle of a breakup now, you know all too well how the end of a relationship affects every […]…
10. One-Sided Love – When You Love Someone That … Over and over again stories pour into advice columns from brokenhearted people madly in love with partners that refuse to love them back. Why are some people afraid to let go and fall in love? Fear. Some of the reasons people have given for succumbing to fear of love are: o I’ve had a bad […]…