I have a very simple formula with just three steps to better dating over 40, and to help you have an incredible successful year at love. First, I do not recommend dating for four months. This may sound very counterintuitive. For the first four months of this process, don’t go on a single date. Bear with me. If you give yourself four months to get very grounded in the things that you want, you will see a huge difference.
So what does that mean?
I don’t want you to just jump in willy-nilly. I don’t want you downloading any of the dating apps. I don’t want you to have friends set you up on dates or any of that during this period. If we have no intention, and no plan, what will happen is we are bound to repeat the same mistakes that we have made in the past. The mistakes that have made you feel cynical and disappointed and made you give up on love.
To begin, get very grounded in dating, and ask yourself questions such as:
- What do you want dating to look like?
- What do you want that to feel like?
- How do you want to be communicated with?
- How do you want to feel?
- How do you want to be responded to?
These different questions will help you get grounded in these first four months in what you want and what your standards are. Make your list of what you want. For example:
- I want someone who’s emotionally available.
- I want somebody who is honest.
- I want somebody who has his financial situation handled, etc…
Become grounded and be very intentional about what that looks like to you. Dating without any of those standards is not going to be a successful dating life. So take this time instead to get grounded on what you want, what your standards are, what your non-negotiables are, what you’re available for, what you’re not available for, how you even want dating to fit into your schedule, and more.
So take this time to not be distracted by dating, not be distracted by any of these online apps or anything for four months. Do the work on yourself; do a deep dig analysis of what has worked for you in the past.
- What hasn’t worked for you in the past?
- Who did you like?
- Were you yourself in relationships?
- What did you give up?
- What did you sacrifice?
- What are you not willing to do anymore?
Become clear on all of your intentions and standards. In addition, for the first four months, strive to focus on your goals.
So there’s always this idea that, “if I find a great guy, that it’s going to make all my problems disappear, or it’s going to make them a lot better.” It’s not fair for you to put all that shit on somebody else. So before going on a date, if there are some deficits that you are dealing with in your nonromantic life, whether that is “I don’t feel good where I am financially,” or “I’m having problems with my health.” Fix that. Get all that squared away during those 4 months.
When we have these good foundations, we can build confidence. When we’re confident, we’re going to know how to date better. We are certainly going to know how to attract and magnetize and pick better partners. Because what I see time and time again with the women that I coach, women who are 45 and better, who are successful, and more, they’re still working with some self-esteem issues. Then they bring that into their relationship when dating new men. They are basically blaming the men for things that they haven’t dealt with. Or they’re putting all these unfair high expectations on a man on the first date.
Doing the work for ourselves
Instead, what you need to do is get your resilience, confidence, and courage to strengthen yourself. So those are excellent foundations before you even say yes to the next date. Please avoid what I like to call “deficit dating,” which is when you’re dating, you’re trying to find somebody who’s going to fix some hole in you or who’s going to fill some void in your life. No! Take the first four months to focus on yourself.
So that is the first step in the 3 steps to better dating over 40 and to have an awesome love life plan. Having an awesome year in dating counterintuitively means not dating for the first four months. It is most important to hold yourself to that.
Step two to better dating over 40 and how to have an awesome love life
This is actually my favorite. However, I do get a lot of pushback when I tell my clients this. It is a hard truth. I don’t recommend online dating. Because what I have found with my clients is that the reason that they get so discouraged and so jaded with the dating process, is they become way too reliant on online dating.
Now, here’s the thing, if you want to online date, and you like that variety, that’s fine. But that should only be 10% to 15% of your dating portfolio. You would not invest all your hard earned money in one stock, because you could lose it all. That is the same thing that happens to you, if you are 100% reliant on online dating to meet men. You’re putting all your talents, all your gifts, all of your socialization into an app. Frankly, it was created by people who didn’t even want to talk to women in the first place. Ladies, you can do better than that. I can show you how to do better than that!
Don’t solely rely on dating apps
However, if after four months you do still want to use online dating apps, I would highly encourage you, as your coach and your mentor, to keep it as a small part of your dating portfolio. Unfortunately, it is reducing a whole person down to a picture, and they’re doing the same to you. He will not see all the other incredible things that you can offer before he even meets you and talks to you just by one picture that he may or may not like. So I don’t encourage women to put their love life and their future happiness into an app. I don’t want you putting all of those hopes and dreams on one random algorithm.
You’re better than that. You’re more sophisticated than that. Because of that, I don’t want you relying on online dating. You deserve to have connections and to meet incredible men, and have wonderful experiences, so get out there, get curious, and explore. You deserve to have that in real life.
Most importantly, you’ve got to get off the apps.
So this is where I come in. And that is actually something that I do a super wonderful deep dive into, in my Ready for Love group coaching program.
The third step to better dating over 40 formula.
No more blaming everybody else for your dating woes. Look, I dealt with this as well, I remember when I got divorced in 2011, I ended up just being in some really terrible rebound relationships with men that I should not have been in any type of relationship with. The first 12 to 18 months of my being divorced and dating again were not a fun time. What I found was that I was blaming everybody else for my lack of romantic luck and not taking responsibility for myself.
So I don’t want you to blame your ex. Your ex is not your problem. That is not the reason that you’re not seeing the results that you want with love. I guarantee you that if you don’t fix what’s going on within yourself, and you don’t fix your strategy, it doesn’t matter where you go, you’re still going to have some of the same issues that are making you not successful at love.
Take responsibility
So we’re not blaming our exes anymore. We are healing. Now, that’s not to say that maybe your ex was not a jerk. However, that has no effect on what we need to do to have a successful dating life. In addition, your parents or your upbringing could be playing a role. While that was in the past, it could affect your romantic track record, but we can not blame that, although it’s still important to understand.
We have to take responsibility for our romantic life the same way we have for our professional lives, our family lives, our financial positions, and more. We’re all successful women who are 40 and better. We know how to manage other areas of our lives and are handling them accordingly. We’re not blaming anybody if we’re not successful in those areas because we’re taking responsibility. The difference? We have a plan for those things! We have a plan for that financial success, for that career success, for going out with our girlfriends, for running a household, for planning for our retirement. Because of that, you already have the skill sets to date successfully. In order to date successfully, we don’t blame anybody anymore for our shortcomings.
We are going to take radical responsibility for our success. Therefore, we need to change our own approach to how we’re dating. The one thing that needs to change in your approach is your goal to learn how to date for your age. If you want to really date in a mature, sophisticated way, you are going to need support.
So those are the 3 steps to better dating over 40.
This is where I can come in. So if you want to have that great love life, if you want to learn how to date better at 40 and above, and if you don’t want to play silly dating games, and if you want that extra support dating, I am here. Trying to figure out how to date by yourself can be very lonely and isolating. It’s completely reasonable to see why you feel jaded, and you’re ready to give up. We’re going to transform like a phoenix and build an incredibly wonderful foundation so you can learn how to date successfully before you even go on that first date.
So if you want that support, and you want to have that direction, and you want to be in an incredible community of other women who are just like you, working together and supporting one another and laughing and sharing stories, Ready for Love can definitely help you with that.
The fourth thing is, I would invite you and take this opportunity to invest in yourself.
Invest in your love life. And join us for our small group coaching with Ready for Love.
Because you know that you deserve to invest in yourself. You deserve to have the strategy and the plan, so you can date successfully. You can finally attract men who are worthy of you and who are worthy of your heart. Learn to be open to love. When you join me with the rest of the other women in the incredible Ready for Love program, you’re going to get an incredible foundation. And you’re going to get that so much faster than trying to do it yourself. But have faith in yourself. Have faith in the process and book that coffee chat right here. I invite you to book one, and I’ll answer your questions.
Use this link to book: https://calendly.com/martha/connection-call
Xo,
Martha
