5 Things You Should Know Before You Start Dating.
I once met a lady who was scared of entering a relationship because she didn’t know what she had to do to prepare herself for being in one. She seemed so confused and at the same time scared of the unknown. She looked at me and said “I think I like him, I am sure that I want to be in a relationship with him but I have never been in one and I don’t know what I need to do to prepare myself as I don’t know the rules that guide being in a relationship.” I could literally feel the fear, confusion and at the same time the love in her voice and the way she expressed herself. Then I said to her “no one really has a rule for how relationships must work, you just need to make it work for you.”
One thing I know is that making your relationship work and having the relationship of your dreams depends on you and your partner, and how committed you are willing to be in your relationship. Your relationship will only be able to thrive on what you and your partner have. Today, this is why we will be talking about 5 important things you should know before you start dating.
• Know Yourself: being in a relationship or dating someone requires that you open the door of your life to someone else. It is like bringing someone into your space. If there is anything you need to know, it has to be yourself. Your personality is what makes you distinct from everyone around you and except you are going to be dating yourself, your partner will never have the exact personality as you. Your temperament, your likes, and dislikes all make you who you are and you need to know yourself enough to recognize your needs and be able to able to communicate them to others, most especially the person you want to be in a relationship with. I need you to ask yourself “Who am I and what do I know about myself?”
• Know Your Values: we all have those things that we hold in high esteem never to be disrupted by anyone. Values are in form of morals, belief systems, and other things that you hold in high esteem. To make your relationship work, you must know these values so you will be able to communicate them to your partner and so that when a situation arises you will not be turned against yourself. Ask yourself “What value will I never compromise irrespective of the situation?”
• Know Your Stressors: a lot of things throw different people off the good mood lane. For some people, noise causes them a lot of harm than good, while some cannot survive in an environment that smells bad. For others, a schedule that is overpacked puts pressure on them, and with pressure comes stress. As small as this might be, it can be in the way of having a great relationship because when you are stressed, you are moody and can get touchy or cranky. We don’t want your partner to be a victim, because you do not know what stresses you nor how to communicate it to your partner. “What makes me sad?” is the magic question here.
• Know Your Boosters: no matter how stressed you become, you will have a certain activity that helps lift your spirit and restore your happiness. For some, it might be taking a nap, for another person it might be eating. Whatever helps restore your happiness, needs to be noted. Allowing your partner to know your boosters will help you get out of the bad mood faster. Ask yourself “What makes me happy when I am sad?”
• Know What You Have to Offer: what your relationship will have and how it will turn out depends on what you and your partner have to offer. I listened to a lady recently and she said “the lowest your partner should ever go is the lowest you met him or her.” This means that if you met your partner on a level 80 in life, your presence in his or her life should only cause an increase and not a decrease in his or her life. You should be an agent of growth in your partner. The question here is “What do I have to offer?”
By the time you have honestly asked and answered each of these questions, you will have prepared yourself for the relationship that you need. Although, you also need to learn the art of effective communication. Knowing all of these things about yourself without being able to communicate them appropriately is as good as not knowing them. Hence, the need to know how to communicate effectively.
“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other can be.”
- Jane Austen
What other things do you think you should know before you start dating? Which of the above tips have you tried before or will you try? I will be glad to hear from you in the chat section. Also, would you like to listen to our podcast? Click Here to get more information about how to get the relationship of your dreams without losing the things that matter most to you.
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