New Year’s Resolutions usually fall under the same, familiar categories – lose weight, stick to a budget, find happiness (in whatever less-general sense applies to you), get organized, enjoy life, learn something new… you get the picture. On Top 10 New Years Resolutions Lists across the internet, “Fall in Love” is almost always included. It’s #9 on Statistic Brain. But how can that be a goal? What I mean is, how is that something that you can control?

Things like losing weight, getting organized, quitting smoking, spending more time with family… well, pretty much everything else on the list… those are 100% within your control. You can DO things to reach those goals. You can go to the gym, stick to your calendar, use hypnosis, set time aside for family activities, but what should you do to further your search for love?

Everyone is different, and I’m not going to use this opportunity to plug my matchmaking services (although I guess I just did, didn’t I?). I’m going to give you the best piece of advice I can to further this goal for you of finding love. You ready for it? Work on yourself.

What does that mean? It means that instead of running out and joining all the online dating sites, downloading all the dating apps, and registering for all the singles events, you need to make sure you check in with yourself first. Are you ready for a relationship? Are you ready for love? Are you ready to put the time and effort into something that’s worth your time and effort but can be difficult? Do you like yourself and are you happy with yourself?

That last one can be a stumper. ARE you happy with yourself? DO you like yourself? Even cheesier, do you LOVE yourself? I’m a strong believer (and have yet to be proven wrong) that you can’t come into a relationship a broken person and expect someone else to fix you; to compensate for your brokenness. If you really, TRULY want to find love in 2015, you need to be OK with yourself. You need to believe that you deserve to receive (AND to give) love, the best kind of love, the unselfish, non-dramatic, trusting, patient, forgiving, jealousy-free, meet-in-the-middle kind of love. And to achieve that, you have to be good with you. You need enough self-esteem to hold on to someone else with a loose enough grip that they feel loved while still feeling free. And that’s a YOU thing; not a them thing. You have to love someone else enough – you have to love YOURSELF enough first – to be OK letting them live their life. Do you know how much self-love that takes? A lot.

So before you jump on your phone and start swiping left and right, take a look in the mirror first. Make sure you’re good with yourself, that you’re not searching for a human band-aid, and that you’re ready for some serious work with some amazing rewards. If you’re not, it’s OK. There are millions of things you can do to get yourself ready for love (email me if you want some help). Books, e-books, exercises, journaling, self-esteem boosting practices like a makeover or losing weight… the list is endless. For starters though, you could work on the rest of your New Years resolution list!! The important thing is taking the steps you need to take so you can get on with your love life. Come on, you can do it!!

Lots of Love and Luck in 2015,

Emily