***Key #2 to Finding Hope and Finding Him: Assess Your List

This is the second in a series of articles sharing my 5 Keys to Finding Hope and Finding Him. The 5 Keys are: M - Me and Me first. A - Assess your list. S - Shed your stuff. T - Time to get out and Trail blaze. R - Real women find their man. Most of you probably have a list of what you want in a man. It may not be on paper…but you have one. It usually includes things like: Honest Tall Funnyr Good lookingr Financially stable When I was doing the work of shifting and learning so I could find my ideal mate, I realized these were just a bunch of adjectives. They didn’t give me any real help in visualizing the experience of the man who would truly make me happy…forever. So I did it differently, and it led me to my perfect partner. Now when I do this step with my coaching clients, I have you do it the same way. We dig deeper, and I ask you to start thinking about the man and the relationship that will fulfill you and make you happy – not just for a night or a few months, but for a lifetime. Being a good date and being a good life partner can be very, very different. Many of us, me included, tend to pick based on whether he’s a good date. That has nothing to do with whether he’ll be a good husband. I know…you deserve to be picky, right? But picky isn’t a good thing and doesn’t tend to serve us well. There is another way to look at how you make your choices. Christie Hartman, PhD, the author of It’s Not Him, It’s You, makes a brilliant distinction between being picky and being discriminating. Picky, she says, is being fussy. It’s when you require close attention to all details, reveal a sometimes-extreme conce for niceties, and are choosy or fastidiously selective. On the other hand, discriminating is when you mark or perceive the distinguishing or peculiar features of something; distinguish or differentiate: make a distinction; use good judgment. See the difference? One of my telecourse clients once did this exercise like this: I am picky when I eliminate someone because of how he looks (short/worn clothing) or when he acts a little shy. I am discriminating when I eliminate someone because he lives in his mother’s garage, asks to move in with me on a first date, has little education or hates to touch. Here is part of the exercise I did for myself and do when I am coaching. It’s my unique way of digging in and getting to what will make you happy in the long run: Start with how you want to feeeel. Translate that to a quality and behavior. As an example: We all have “tall” on our list, right? Most women do, and they consider it a must-have. But why? Why do you want him to be tall? How does it make you feel when you’re with a tall guy? Do you feel attractive? Feminine? Safe? Now I ask: Is that the only quality a man can have that makes you feel that way? What if he’s of incredibly strong character, confident, treats you like gold, is always interested in making you happy, finds you incredibly beautiful and sexy…would he also have to be tall? Does that open your mind at all? Do you see how starting with how you want to feel creates some different views of the man you’re looking for? If you’re looking for the man who’s going to share your life and stay with you through thick and thin, he needs to be more than a good date! The truth is that you need to see his character and behavior to know if he’ll be a good partner for you. A simple list doesn’t do that for you. And here’s an important note: there really is no such thing as perfect, ladies. If I had gotten my fantasy, Larry would be rich and a few inches taller. If he got his, I would be rich and many pounds lighter. But we both had clarity about what was really going to make us happy in our lives. We saw that the other had those qualities, and we picked each other for life. We absolutely love each other and our life together. Lori Gottlieb, the author of Marry Him: the Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, got it right when she said: I discovered that finding a guy to get real was the real love story. Figuring out Who is He and Getting Past your current list is Key #2. What do you truly need to feel happy, safe and loved the rest of your life? Get that clarity and see how you start becoming a much better man-picker and man-attractor.