Love, Self-Improvement, and the Six Month Rule

Not everyone is fortunate to have a supportive partner. 

There are as many reason for not finding your person as there are potential candidates. For starters it’s extremely difficult to initiate a relationship—where do you go to meet a nice man or woman? What do you say? What is the protocol for telling someone you find them beautiful and interesting and want to continue exploring what they have to offer? How much of yourself do you share and at what point do you share your hidden depths? 

Before I go on I should say, this isn’t an article answering those questions. Nor would I trust any blog, article, or video titled “Find the Love of Your Love in Three Easy Steps”. There’s no one size fits all. 

All I can do is relay a little of my love story and hope it motivates you to leave a toxic relationship, or work on yourself so you don’t become someone’s abuser, or hold out for something that really clicks for you. 

I’ve always been a romantic, and perhaps my version of ideal love isn’t what would make everyone as happy as I am. I think some of the following points still universally apply to love and relationships.

You’re never looking for your other half. This is as romantic an idea as it comes, but it’s bullshit. If you’re feeling like something is missing in your life, you’re never going to find it in another person. Never. You’re a whole. A complete entity. The feeling of incompleteness comes from your own unhealthy self-perception. If you find yourself feeling lonesome, or hollow, or aching for affection, I can tell you from experience that whoever you look to fill that void is going to feel smothered, and trapped into a needy, often one-sided relation. 

The other side of that coin is starting something with someone who is broken, or will low self worth and nursing them in a strange paternal relationship. If you find yourself constantly cheering your partner up, or working while they lay around depressed, or unable to express your feelings without a rebuttal of “Yeah, but my situation is much harder to deal with”, then you have become a mother or father to the adult dependent that you sleep with. Gross, right? 

I’m also unsure if there is actually an abundance of people out there that are ready for a healthy relationship. There are many, many unhappy people looking to fill a void with a partner who will make everything better for them, and that leads to a great deal of codependency and a mutual validation of the sorry state you find yourselves in. 

Love is difficult. No doubt about it, but if I can give one piece of advice, as an ordinary man who found his way in the dark—if you find yourself in a relationship that doesn’t feel consistently good, or you find yourself lonely and desperate for a relationship, then stop. Just stop. Cease the relationship, romantic or otherwise. Cease your forlorn search. Give it six months. Dedicate six months to upgrading yourself. Be selfish with your time and energy. Travel, in your own backyard if you have to. Meet and engage with people with the sole purpose of hearing a story and nothing else. Work on your passions. If you can’t quit your shitty job, then work on a little side project that tickles your creative brain, and gets your hands moving. 

The moment you take a look in the mirror and start working on a single aspect of yourself, the world looks a bit brighter. Its incremental, but over time it becomes noticeable. Get up at the same time every day, make your bed, have a cold shower, meditate or just count thirty deep breaths, do 30-40 minutes of yoga or other exercise, write a daily intention and goal, and hit that goal. The change to your life can be remarkable.

The loneliness will decrease or disappear completely, your self-worth will shoot right up, the mental fog of depression or anxiety will lift. 

It takes 10,000 hours to become a master, they say. Let’s do some simple math. If you worked on yourself for an hour every day, you would be a master of your mind and body in 416 days. A little over a year. If you spent two hours a day fitting in your meditation, exercise, a working on a hobby project, you could be happier, healthier, and more motivated than you’ve ever been, in a little over six months. 

What could you accomplish if you dedicated every waking moment to being a better person and working on something really fulfilling? 

It was my experience that my lifelong neediness to fill a romantic, heroic role was obliterated by a long break from the world and a real dedication to working on my shit. Six months later I formed a relationship with my future wife and baby-mumma. Who, serendipitously (or divinely), left an abusive man-child and had been doing the same thing I had, for the last six months. 

We now have a perfect mix of faerytale romance, no-bullshit accountability, and a powerful support system. I can say with 100% certainty that its because we both, independently of each other, got to a place where we knew ourselves, knew what we wanted from our lives (including who we wanted in our lives), and developed enough self-worth to not settle for anything less. 

We celebrate each other every day because we understand how rare what we have is. And it requires constant work. We both know our happiness isn’t the other’s responsibility, but we’re there to hold space and make each other laugh because, well, love. We can spot a destructive behaviour pattern a mile away and so we create a process to block that shit out like Drake. We take care of ourselves first and then come into the relationship with enough energy to uplift each other.

It’s rare, but worth the work and the wait. You owe it yourself to do the work and find your own path before you turn onto another with someone else. Even if you don’t find that storybook love right away, you will no longer have a detrimental need for it. Imagine being a completely autonomous, self-possessed, and confident person, who needs nobody, but is open to a worthy love. You deserve that, so go get it.