How finding love is a bit like finding a job

Many years ago, I remember putting on a business suit and forcing myself to go to as many networking events as my university advertised in the hopes of somehow landing that ideal job. I didn’t in fact; but after a series of seemingly endless rows of interviews where I went through a wardrobe of business suits and learned how to answer questions that I really didn’t believe had anything to do with how I’d actually be as an employee, I ended up accepting the best offer that I got. It was a compromise of course and not really the ideal job that I’d dreamed of, but I needed something quick and so I was quick to compromise.

Fast forward many years forward when I’ve finally landed my ideal career: being a Love Coach and helping women all over the world find that ideal love for themselves, even if it’s finding the ideal within a relationship that they believe has long run stale and that they want my help in renewing. I’m working much harder now than ever before and my free time is so limited that I rarely even watch television, unless it’s to keep my kids company on the occasions that we sit and watch as a family. But I’m the most happy and fulfilled than I’ve ever been. It took me years – way too many years in fact – to stop compromising and leave a career I didn’t really enjoy behind to pursue one that I loved but that was a big risk when I first began. Over a year down the line and I have no regrets at all.

During my time as a Love Coach, I’ve met many women from many walks of life. Most of them have spent countless hours, days, weeks, months, even years at times doing whatever they need to do to get themselves a job. They own at least several interchangeable interview-appropriate business suits and heels to match. They wear makeup and their best glossy smile for networking events that involve them potentially getting a better job. And they have sat through countless interviews answering completely banal questions about their strengths, weaknesses, life goals, career aspiration, etc, etc. Somehow, this is acceptable as a normal course of action for these women; and normally going through this experience, as mildly traumatic as the occasional rejections sometimes seem, these women eventually land a job that they are content to accept. Often it’s not their ideal job, but occasionally it may lead to one that is closer to their ideal that comes simply due to the fact that they know what they’re doing, have more experience and have realised how to act and what they can and cannot say.

Funny enough, finding the ideal job and succeeding at it is not that different from finding that ideal love and being great navigating that relationship too. Just as you’d put on the appropriate outfit for a job interview or networking event in the hopes of eventually landing your ideal job, it helps to put yourself together appropriately to be noticed by your ideal man. Just as putting on some makeup and a shiny smile usually is helpful when going to an interview or networking event in order to come across better, some makeup and a shiny smile helps you to be noticed and liked more by the men you’re looking to meet when you go out or on a date as well. Very often an interview is a sifting process where you both have to answer each other’s questions to make sure that there’s a fit between the two. The same is true with a date or when meeting people when you go out. And of course, you get better at your job as your experience grows, just as you become more successful at a relationship as you keep working at it, or as you learn from the mistakes of one to benefit another that comes after.

Yet often the same women who will have no issue going through the process over and over in order to secure the best opportunity in the career world are the ones who say they can’t be bothered to go through any of it in order to meet the right man in the world of dating and relationships. Sometimes they just settle on the first one who pays them any notice; or often they just settle with ending up alone, even when they desperately want to be with someone.

The thing is that the world of finding love can sometimes be difficult to navigate. All too often there is pain first before there is fulfilment. There are usually many more frogs than princes and you may have to wade through way more bad weather than you ever thought you can survive before you arrive at that perfect sunny relationship that you’ve always wanted. The process of finding love is complicated and sometimes treacherous so way too many people don’t ever stay past the hurt part. They get broken once and then they retreat. It’s like that with everything in life. The things that matter generally don’t come too easily. That’s why most of the truly successful people out there have a very compelling and dynamic story to tell of how they got that way. My most successful entrepreneur friends took many risks before they found their reward and some survived quite a few crashes before they fell upon an idea that took off big.

I don’t think success is meant to be easy, or everyone would find it; that’s true in your career as much as it is in love. The challenge is what filters people out so that only some, who want it badly enough to really work for it, make it to what they really want. It takes many people years filled with challenges before they find their ideal path. Many of my most happily in love friends and clients suffered through more than a few heartbreaks before they found their ideal love. The only thing they did differently from the masses who end up hiding out alone is that they didn’t let the pain stop them for long. It’s ok to retreat and lick your wounds for a while. In fact, it’s even healthy to do that once in a while, especially if retreating means going through the lessons that you’ve learned and thinking about how you could improve for the next time; the most successful entrepreneurs do that after each failure or non-starter and that’s what makes them better. Often, they have a Business Coach or Mentor to ensure that they consider all of the lessons fully. It’s letting that hiding out stretch out to forever that keeps you from attaining that ideal love story that you so wish you can hold, just as quitting forever after the first failure would mean that you’d never actually have that business success that you so dream of. Many people give up at the first obstacle; they aren’t the ones who smile one day to their grandchildren telling them the stories of the obstacles that they surpassed to reach their success.

I know that sometimes the dating world could be very difficult to navigate, so if you’re looking for a guide to propel your love life forward and would like to find out more about my upcoming workshops and my one to one work with clients, schedule your free half hour call with me by emailing info@juliakeller.co.uk with “BetterLoveLife” in the subject line (or just reply to this newsletter and change the subject line to the one above). I look forward to helping you realise your great love success

1 thought on “How finding love is a bit like finding a job”

  1. Hi Julia,

    Thanks for writing this article!
    Nowdays, we get everything easily, and we think that the proper love of our life is going to come easily as well, but that`s not true. As you said, we don’t have to let the pain stop us for long and keep meeting new people, go out with friends or join a new club because we never know what is around the corner..

    Laura.

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