Five Steps to Change Your Romantic Luck
by Melissa Balmer

“Good luck happens when preparedness meets opportunity” - anonymous

I am not a person who started out in life with great romantic luck; at times in the past it has been truly colossally cringe worthy bad. Thank God much of it has been laughable in retrospect! My luck didn't change until I did, until I learned how to focus my romantic intentions and enjoy the journey I made just about every mistake in the book: I created a false self to lead with, led with my sex appeal, made myself too available, talked too much, wrote too many emails, and generally felt I wasn't worth what my heart longed for and therefore constantly sabotaged myself. I dated men who cheated on me and tried to forgive them (unsuccessfully), I dated people I didn't like and knew I wouldn't like from the get go, I made the men I adored way way too important too quickly, and at the end of my twenties  got married for the wrong reasons (social and family pressure) and ended up in what was a pretty good business partnership but a lousy romance. The list is even longer but I won't bore you, feel free to inject your own experiences and foibles here.

The dramatically different romantic luck I have now has been learned and earned by careful study and application and learning from my mistakes. I promise I use each and every one of the following tips I share with you here on a very regular basis. If you use them with right intention and let yourself constantly learn from the feedback they bring you, you can radically change your own romantic life too.
 
1. Stop Your Negative Feedback Tape
Nothing is going to change your luck for long until you become your own champion, and to become your own champion you’ve got to get a handle on the negative feedback you may be constantly giving yourself - negative self talk that you might not even consciously aware of saying to yourself.

The negative tape I’m talking about is the sort of thoughts that barrage us when we’re sitting in traffic late for an important appointment or a visit to family members we don’t want to upset or let down. It’s the kind of thoughts we have when we’re having a lousy day, our boss isn’t happy with our work; we’re worried about our financial situation, handling our work and home load, or a relationship that’s on the rocks. The challenge is that once these negative thoughts get started they take on a life of their own, and soon they’ve worn a groove into our neural pathways.  These are often the thoughts that haunt us when we first wake, or keep us from falling asleep at night.

The good news is that we can change the way we think. Science is now finding the data to support the idea that by doing so we can make actual positive changes in our brain chemistry. In March of 2008 one such study was published by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Public Library of Science One focusing on the very positive effects of the loving kindness meditation practice of a group of Tibetan monks associated with the Dalai Lama.

I don’t know about you, but I learned very early in life to shame myself mentally, to berate myself when I wasn’t living up to my own, or my parent’s, high standards. I thought I was doing the right thing, beating myself up mentally so I’d become a better person. I didn’t become consciously aware of the harm it was causing me until my early twenties when a dear friend gave me a set of books by the metaphysical Christian scholar Emmit Fox.

The piece of writing of Fox’s that has stuck with me the most strongly over the years is the one entitled “The Seven Day Mental Diet.” In it Fox notes that, “The most important of all factors in your life is the mental diet on which you live. It is the food which you furnish to your mind that determines the whole character of your life.”

One of the key points Fox makes in this piece is that you cannot simply stop a negative thought; you must replace it with something positive, and you need to have those positive thoughts ready at your finger tips because negative thoughts can swoop in and sabotage us at any time. These “positive” thoughts are usually called “positive affirmations” and are far more powerful when they’re specific, you are ready to believe them, and are voiced in the present tense.

For example, if you find yourself frequently in the waiting game for that special someone to call or email you, and find yourself bombarded with thoughts of not being good enough for who you’re attracted to, a couple of useful affirmations would be, “I have a very interesting and fulfilling social life, I am always in demand for fun, social and romantic outings” and “I am strongly attracted to men/women (you choose) who are strongly attracted to me and have the time and commitment to spend quality time with me.”

I like to keep my favorite affirmations written down and I do my best to read over them at least once a day, either in the morning or evening, to remind me of what I really want to make happen.

2. Own Your Negative Patterns
Most of us are aware enough to see that we have negative behavior patterns that bring about poor results in our lives, and this seems especially true in the romance department. Isn’t it fascinating that even the most successful of us in the business world can be lousy at love?

The challenge isn’t really that we have negative patterns, the challenge is facing them head on and doing something about them rather than analyzing and picking over them to death but staying mired in their destructiveness.

For some reason I got the idea into my head early on that I needed to earn my way into romance with anyone I was really attracted to. I felt that my true worth was wrapped up in the fact that I could be super useful and help solve a man’s problems (in this way I mirrored what men often feel their role is).  This is exactly the way I proceeded into a relationship with my ex-husband. I was a successful young sales executive and he was a graduate student getting his masters when we started dating, but he didn’t want to practice in the field that he was studying in, instead he wanted to be an.

I took that artist idea of his and ran with it, and came up with the idea for a business he could go into – the business we focused all of our energy on almost our entire relationship, and the business he’s still in today.  Our relationship ended up being far more a business partnership than a romance, we both share equal blame in this, but I own that I set up my part in it by thinking that I had to be the smart problem solver rather than just a woman in love.

Will I ever give up trying to be a problem solver in my romantic relationships? No, not likely, but I have given up that I have to earn my way into a relationship with a man with my wisdom and ideas. Trust me, I’ve learned playing the role of a mom (by men or women) just isn’t sexy, and I like being sexy.

Now, I feel, is the time to say a word about the one who got away, the one you secretly or openly pine for, the man or woman who’s keeping you from being present in your current romantic circumstances. If it hasn’t worked out, if you’ve both given your all and it’s still no good, or if only one of you is willing to try, you’ve got to let go (especially if the only one who is willing to try is you). I honestly don’t know if you’re truly meant to be, you might be someday, but obviously not right now or you’d already be together.

If you want to be happy in love you have to let go, cut all the strings, and give yourself the chance for something and someone totally new – including a new you.

And I speak from both experience and wisdom on this point. I used to be one of those women who would mourn a relationship that didn’t work out for years. In two very particular cases I really thought I could never meet anyone that I’d feel that attracted to, with whom I’d have so much in common, like so much etc. etc. ever again (you see the problem already right, that I even admit it happened twice?). Oh sure, I’d make pale half-hearted attempts, I’d date other people, but in the back of my mind I always wanted to be with the other feeling sure there was no one better for me.

I was wrong.  I now know that there are infinite possibilities and opportunities for love and romance in the world if I’m open to them. As Deepak Chopra notes in the Book of Secrets, “Mister Right is one of a hundred or a thousand people you could spend a satisfying life with.” Does that sound unromantic to our current way of thinking? For me now it’s intensely romantic and hopeful, I can be part of an unfolding process and not trapped in the past. I’ve seen the radical changes it has brought about to my own love life, and to friends. Open your mind and your world and people who fit you romantically as you never really thought possible will walk into your life in exciting and mysterious ways.

3. Get Clear on Your Intentions
What do you really want to have happen in your romantic life? Do you even know? Or perhaps you know, but you might want to run before you walk. These days it’s very popular for women, especially young women, to fixate on marriage before they even know how to be in a real happy successful romantic relationship. Dr. Phil even did a show a few years ago on how unrealistic this situation is getting.

A romantic relationship isn’t about a big fancy wedding (doesn’t Carrie learn this in the “Sex and the City” movie?), a beautiful dress, a honeymoon or the fancy and useful presents you get to register for, it isn’t sunsets and roses. A romantic relationship is a very intimate challenging journey that can be fabulous – if both parties are equally committed to showing up every day and giving it their all.

There’s quite a bit of learning to do before marriage should even come into the picture. Some of us still need to learn how to meet people we’re attracted to and then go on fun dates, indeed, some of us still need to learn how to smile at attractive strangers on the street just to extend our courage and get out of our shells a bit.

I’m all about baby steps and giving yourself tons of positive feedback when you accomplish even the smallest goal. My term for this is “bite sized chew.” Break down your bigger goals into manageable steps you can wrap your mind around rather than being “pie in the sky.” If you haven’t had the courage to even try online dating then perhaps getting a lovely photo taken of yourself is a place to begin. If you’re too shy to go out to social mixers for singles in your area start with a class on a subject that really interests you (note to men, women go to classes in droves, so get out there). 

4. Change Your Routine
We get trapped in familiar routines because we don’t have to think about them anymore, we just do them. But if you truly want to change your romantic luck then you’ve got to mix it up and let some fresh air in. Face yourself straight on in this point and own that obviously what you’re doing right now isn’t working, or isn’t working anymore, or you wouldn’t be reading this – whether you’re already in a romantic relationship or not.

Let’s say the extent of your current socializing is hanging out with friends on Thursdays for Happy Hour but you haven’t met someone new and exciting at your favorite spot in months. It might be even worse, you might use these Thursday nights to secretly pine for the one who got away and who just might show up as part of your extended friend network. Some of us can convince ourselves this is all we deserve of a love life – to yearn for the one who got away, hoping they’ll see the error of their ways and come back to us.

But back to your socializing routine. You have two choices, don’t you? Either you’ve got to expand the amount of time you spend socializing to other days, or you’ve got to start trying new places on those Thursday nights. Trust me, you’ll gain a lot more mystery and interest to Mr. or Ms. “once upon a time” if you disappear for a while. Let go, be ready for new adventures.

The truth is that there is no end to the ways we can meet a great someone for romance, but we've got to be open to the opportunities. Too many of us live trying to section our lives into very neat compartments. I’m not suggesting you open yourself up to office romance if that’s really frowned on in your company, but I am asking for you to consider there are infinite possibilities. I met my last boyfriend because I responded to a “friends only” request for a hiking partner on craigslist.  We both were truly looking for a new fried to go hiking with, but happily it ended up being more. You can meet someone at the grocery store, a cooking class, out walking your dog on the beach, on a plane going to visit a friend or business trip – the ways are endless, but only if you’re open to them.

5. Be Grateful for Every Blessing
There are times in everyone’s life when things feel very grim indeed, and sometimes we’re right. Over the past eight years I have gone through dealing with excruciating migraines (on a daily basis for a few years) and the financial havoc those migraines brought about on my life. There have been times that if it weren’t for my family and friends I’d have literally been living on the street.

So yes, for several years I was terribly poor with a stack of bills I had no idea how to pay, but I had two dreams I clung to; one was to support myself as a writer and the other was to have really wonderful love life. I had to move forward in the baby steps I recommend in both cases because I often didn’t have the energy or money for anything else (after all, it takes money to look nice and be well groomed even if the man pays for the date).

Slowly I let go of my preconceived notions of what a man I was dating, or in a relationship with, should “be” on the outside and focused on who I really was at heart and what I needed romantically. A fascinating thing happened, the men I attracted became more and more “right” for me. I became very grateful for, and remembered to notice, every tiny improvement even when a new man and I wouldn’t run off into the sunset for long. I kept a journal and jotted down what I discovered (and often wrote about it online) and realized and many of those ideas make it into my articles. The personal, as they say, is universal.

Some days you may only be able to be grateful for getting out of bed and facing your day, it’s okay to start right there.

In Closing
What I want to make clear with these five steps is that your current conditions aren’t as important as you are. You are worth happiness in love no matter your circumstances. You are worth learning from your mistakes, and you are definitely worth changing your romantic luck for the better.