Is Dating Feeling Hopeless? 7 Questions to Get You Unstuck

Is dating just starting to feel a little bit hopeless? You feel like there are no guys out there for you. You feel like nothing is just clicking in your love life. You feel lost and confused about where to go. Well, our goal at the end of this video is to just give you hope. And we want to give you 7 questions that you can ask yourself that will help you get unstuck in your love life. Gary, I think this is going to be incredibly important for people. As they start thinking about their future love life.

Welcome to the Love Strategies Podcast, where we help successful women attract high-value men, date with a strategy, and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else, backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam Lodolce, professional dating coach and founder of Love Strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy.

It's so important because hope is everything. It's the key to success in many ways. And if you start feeling like you're losing hope, it's going to be really hard. And I think let's just, let's just say what it is. Like, admit it. It's okay. You've thought about giving up. You thought about quitting. You've had this conversation with yourself. You're like, that's it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay single. I'll retire to a nunnery. Maybe I'm going to give up on men entirely. We get it. I mean, we've seen this a lot. And I think the most important thing is knowing that this is a natural reaction. This isn't a reflection on you. This isn't a reflection on your future, your present, your past. It's none of that. It's just like sometimes dating is a little hard. Dating can be frustrating, can be annoying, it can be confusing. And so that feeling of being stuck You're not alone. There are plenty of other folks who have gone through that experience. But what we know from working with thousands of women who are exactly in that same spot is there's a way to get out, right? And these, these questions, these prompts, they're here. We're, we're going to help you get unstuck with, with a few simple prompts.

Well, I'll say this, if there's anything true in life, it's that ebbs happen. We go through downtimes and then there are flows in life where everything is just starting to work out. And Gary, I'm going to call us out because that's before this podcast started. I'm gonna say it, we were both kind of coming into the pod in a little bit of an off mood today. We're very ebb, very ebb, very ebb. Both of us have just had a few situations recently where we're just like, oh my God, like it's just been a tough week. And Gary, I don't— can I tell them about your foot situation? Is that fair?

Seems like you did.

Yes, I just did.

Totally.

Well, we could always edit it out, but That's fine. We're, we're going for it. And it was really interesting. Gary, do you want to tell them about what, what's going on with the foot?

Yeah, so, you know, to, um, for health reasons and for like blowing off stress and, and just like life reason, I run a lot. I run like 15 miles a week. And like about 10 days ago I was trail running, which it was like, it was nice weather, all this stuff. And you know, I wasn't fully paying attention because I was probably listening to a podcast or whatever, and I I stepped, landed right, you know, a ball on my foot, sharp rock, and essentially since then have not been able to walk because I tore something potentially in my— I'm still trying to work out exactly what it is, but I was ebbing to Adam saying how, you know, for the last week I haven't been able to do— I haven't been able to walk enough to like exercise, and I'm going stir crazy. I'm going nuts. And it's like, talk about feeling hopeless. I don't ever feel like this. Like, I don't get this feeling very often, if hardly ever in life, but it's like I've been going— I was saying to my wife this morning, like, I, I feel like I'm depressed. Like, I feel like I'm just like, I don't feel like there's a way out. And I think it's, um, you know, when you're in those downtimes, it's easy to start feeling like it's always going to be like this. But we know— and now I'm like, I feel like I'm pep talking myself a little bit— but it's like, when you look back on all the other times you've been down, you felt that, and it passes. And it just never feels like that in the time. But, you know, it's always nice to have ladders and ropes and ways to get out of the hole. And hopefully that's what we're going to do for you all today.

Definitely. And Gary, there is hope for you. There is hope, my man. I will walk again. You will. You will not only walk again, but you're going to thrive. And we're talking about it today before this pod. That's why I had to bring it up, because we're talking about just turning obstacles into opportunities, because obstacles will come in life. And I think the truest sign of being really successful— and Gary, I applaud you so much for even like To some of you listening, you might be like, oh, he just injured his foot, it's not a big deal. But it's a very big deal for Gary. And, you know, we all go through our challenges, but learning how to see those moments for what they are, which is just this incredible opportunity to learn and grow from it. Maybe Gary— I was telling Gary, maybe he'll start becoming like a powerlifter or something and just start like lifting at the gym instead of running. Maybe in like 10 years Gary's gonna be jacked, like I'm talking like the big muscles coming on here, because he's like, the best thing that ever happened to me is I injured my foot and I gone to lifting in the gym.

We'll see. Thank you. TBD, to be determined. But, you know, I think because I'm going— because I'm in the middle of it, I don't know. We'll see. But I, I think what this all speaks to is just the importance of having a support system around you. And I even said to Adam before we got on, it's like, I was looking forward to, to podcasting and talking to Adam today because, like, he's the guy in my— like, always super positive, always top of the world, high energy all the time. And I said to Colleen this morning, I can't wait to go talk to Adam because he's going to get me in a better mood. And yeah, mission accomplished, buddy.

All right, well, and with that said, let's talk about how dating can feel hopeless and how to get out of it. What a topic to, to put you in a better mood, right? But no, this— in, in all seriousness, this is something that we talk a lot about with our clients because the ebbs will happen, the frustrations will happen. And Gary and I are in such a unique situation with clients where we've seen this literally thousands of times with clients who are like, I can't do this, I'm so frustrated, I hate men, I hate dating. And we've seen it where they go through that, that period, and then 3 months later they meet the love of their life and they forget about that terrible moment. It's not even a memory anymore. So when we experience that with a client, we're always just like, it's gonna be okay. Like, because we know from the bottom of our heart that it is going to be okay. They're going to get through it, they're going to get through the frustration, and it really just requires a little bit of perspective, a different way to look at the problem, because it can be really, really hard to figure this out yourself, right? It— when you're kind of just in it, you're— you can't see the forest through the trees. And when you're doing it alone, you're, you're just like immersed in the problem and it feels impossible to see anything else.

I'm going to say something that's going to sound weird and describe something that's going to sound a little bit weird, but clients will come on and they'll be on our masterminds and they ask a question and they just joined And they'll say, I'm new and this is my problem. And they, they share a lot of themselves and they share about being down and being hopeless and frustrated, confused, and all these things. And I always say something to the effect of, I get it, but I'm really excited for you. And they never really, like, you kind of always see like their expression change, like excited. And I would say, no, no, I get, I get that me saying I'm excited sounds really weird. I said, but here's why I'm excited, because I've seen this before, and I, I've seen also how this ends. Like, I see your future in a way you don't see your future. I see that how you are right now is not how you're going to be even a month from now. You don't see that yet, and I get it. We're going to be here for you the whole way. But I see how a month from now, 3 months from now, 6 months from now, all the way out, I see how it's going to be so much better. And you're going to look back at this And you're gonna smile and be like, oh, I get why he was excited. He's not a jerk, right? He, he understands and he saw it in a way. And I think like that's what— it's what good teachers do, good parents do, good coaches do, is like they see a future that's possible for you before you do. But that's the only way to help you get there. And so, you know, I think so many times we're feeling despair about whatever it is, dating. You need a pep talk, but it's not always easy to have someone there to give you that pep talk right in the moment. And so These prompts are designed to be 7 mini pep talks you can give yourself for different ways of looking at things that, that help you get out of that despair.

Yeah. So let's jump into the first question you can ask yourself to help you defeat some of this despair. If you've, if you're ever going through right now, or if you go through in the future, the first one is what relationship patterns keep repeating and what are they trying to teach you? When you ask yourself this, you're really asking yourself, what is life telling you? What is life teaching you over and over and over again? Because I'll say this as a coach, I've created so many courses over the years, probably about 30 different courses on dating, confidence, relationships, and so on and so forth. It's really helpful to learn information from an instructor like ourselves, Gary. But sometimes we need to really learn the lesson by experiencing it in life. And I found it's really helpful to have a course along with experiencing the lessons, because at least you can learn the right lesson from the problem that you're experiencing. But it's so important for us when we go through a challenging moment. For example, let's say you go out, keep going out with guys, you have a great first date, and then you never hear from them again. Or they just continue to ghost on you. Well, is there a lesson hidden in there? Is there a lesson in the types of guys we're deciding to go out with? Is there a lesson to be learned on what it is that we might be talking about on a first date? If you're going out on a first date and asking him when he wants to get married— in the next 3 months— is that teaching you a lesson? Now, I know that's an extreme circumstance, but that's probably not what you're doing. But something like that Could that be causing it? Could it be our body language? There's a million different ways to look at this, but what is the lesson that we're trying to learn from these challenges? This allows you to reframe this from feeling hopeless to being like, every challenge I experience is an amazing lesson that life is trying to teach me.

Yeah. And you know, there's that saying that life will keep trying to teach you the same lesson until you get it. Right? And so if you find yourself in this pattern where you just keep dating emotionally unavailable man after emotionally unavailable man, what's it— what, what is that trying to teach you? Like, what's the lesson to be taken? Continually dating narcissists, right? Are things always turning sexually too quickly in your relationships? Like, there, there's underlying things in here that you need to extract from those experiences because there's always, there's always something to be learned. And I think this, the second prompt very much follows from that, which is what's the real deeper issue that's underlying the superficial issues, right? So we tend to notice the superficial things, right? We notice, you know, people not responding to our prompts on online dating forums, our texts, you know, we notice that, that kind of stuff, but what's really going on under it? And so for example, you know, we often hear from clients something along the lines of, There are no good men in the world. I can't find any good men. And yeah, I mean, that's—

you want to be like, uh, hello, hello, I'm a guy. But, uh, sitting right here, if you're like that, Gary, I just want to be like, what are you saying about me? I had— last time I checked, I happen to be a guy. So I don't know, what are we saying here?

They say, you know, you can't find anybody. And it's like, yes, that is the top of mind issue— can't find anybody. But if you really dig deeper, what's really going on is there's an underlying avoidant attachment, right? Where you're a little uncomfortable with closeness, you're a little bit worried about getting hurt. So you've gotten very good at keeping people at a distance. Um, every once in a while you'll hear clients and they'll say, you know, I'm really good at getting things started, but then they always just fizzle out and die. And that's the superficial top of mind problem. And it's like, okay. What's underlying that? And the underlying issue is prioritizing chemistry and sparks over deep, meaningful connections, or just being impatient and moving too fast, right? Some of our clients will say, I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate online dating. And it was like, okay, well, what's, what's really going on? Because it's not, it's never that simple. It's really not. It's not that thing. And it's like, really what it comes down to is they have a deep fear of rejection. And so if you avoid getting— if you just say you hate online dating, you never have to get on there. You never run the risk of getting rejected and not having people reach out. And so, so much of what underlies a lot of the superficial things, whatever, whatever's presenting as a problem, look deeper. What's the fear that's driving your behavior? What's the fear that's holding you back? Fear of getting hurt, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, fear of being alone, fear of being lonely. It's almost always those things. And so that, when you get down to those aspects, that's where the growth will happen.

Amen. Which I think segues really well to the third question you can ask yourself, which is, what's the story that I'm telling myself about dating, love, and men? And more importantly, is it true? Because here's the thing, Humans are storytellers. We resonate through stories. I mean, for hundreds of thousands of years, we would sit around campfires, tell stories. That's how we learned lessons. And it's certainly a way we can communicate with other humans, but no one talks about the stories that we tell ourselves. And we tell ourselves a lot of stories to make sense of the world. We have a lot of self-protective narratives to explain our situations. That allow us to feel like, you know what, it's not my fault. You know, it's someone else's fault and try to push the ownership elsewhere. And so it's important for us to look at the stories that we're constantly telling ourselves and see if it is causing us to not take ownership of the situation. So some of the stories that we'll hear from women when they first start working with us They'll say things like, I wasn't taught how to date or have relationships, so I'm never going to figure it out. Or my parents were— had a terrible relationship and divorce, so I'm going to repeat the same pattern. Or another one we might hear is modern dating is the problem. Online dating absolutely sucks. It sucks the life out of me. All the men there are horrific. Or we just had a client the other day who was talking about there are no good men where I live. And then I asked her, well, remind me, where do you live again? And she lives in New York City. And she's like, yeah, in New York City there are no good guys, but I think that in other parts of town, maybe if I was like maybe in New Jersey, close to where Gary lives, or, you know, somewhere else, maybe there are good guys there. And then someone else chimes in, is like, no, I live there and there are no good guys. And they were both new clients. And I want to be patient in these moments, But I can't be in those moments because I'm like, think about that. The New York City person wants to move to New Jersey. New Jersey person wants to move to New York City to find good men. These are just stories that they're telling themselves. Because if you really think about it, you're telling me in all of New York City there's not one great guy for you? Really? Or is that— is that just a story to protect yourself so you don't feel bad when you're like, I'm not gonna go out this tonight to meet anyone because there are no good guys out there, so why even go out? Gary, we've heard this a million times, right? And we, we always need to cut through this to get to the heart of it.

Well, and you said something that's really important with the stories, which is they're self-protective, right? I mean, and that's why you want to ask yourself, what is the story I'm telling myself? Not the truth, the story. And it's, it's a work of fiction in many ways, but it's, it's giving you an excuse to not do the thing that you're uncomfortable doing. Now I get it, like sometimes You know, dating is uncomfortable and there's certain aspects of it that you don't feel fully ready for. But that's where, you know, you build up your skills and dating is a skill. You build up your knowledge and there's a ton to learn. You build these things up and all of a sudden you become more capable and it puts a lot of these stories to bed because the thing you have to remind yourself when you're telling yourself a story, let's just take the example of there are no good men in New York City. Now, what's the opposite story? The opposite story is there's tons of great men in New York City. Look around. People are in relationships. People have found, like, those counterfactual stories are also true, right? Like, you just had a client too the other day saying about how, you know, well, I was married for a long time and my husband passed, so I'm not— there's no way I'm ever going to be able to date again.

Right?

It's like, that's the story she's telling herself. Well, thankfully, because we have so many clients, I said, you know, and one of— there was a client on the call at the same time who talks about her exact experience, being married for a long time, her husband passing, and who has now found this amazing relationship. It's like, well, you know, I know for a fact there's someone else on this call. And then, you know, she unmuted herself and like talked about her experience, like Right then and there, we had the exact opposite story. And like, if you live in your own world, it's sometimes hard to realize that there are other narratives, there are other stories out there that are equally as true. And so it's a matter of finding, you know, reaching out, finding that support system to help you find those stories, find that knowledge, and work on those skills. Because all of those things are really going to make a difference.

What I will say about these stories is they're self-protective narratives in the short term. They protect you from like not doing anything and being like, okay, well, I'm, I'm just okay as of now. But they really harm you in the long term. And what I, I really love to question the stories I tell myself— and we all fall victim to these things, I do myself, I mean, all the time— but what it does is if you fall for these types of stories, no longer are you in control, right? If you really believe that modern dating is the problem and no good guys are online, guess what? You can't control the outcome anymore. It's completely out of your control. Whereas if you look at the reality of it, which is modern dating is hard, but there are great guys out there, and I just need to find the nuggets of gold that exist out there because he's out there. Suddenly now, okay, it is going to be hard, it's going to require some effort, it's going to require some strategies, but now it's within my control. Right? I might as well go for it because he does exist out there. So that's everything we try to do as an entire organization here at Love Strategies, is support you and guide you and put you in control of the process. And I will say, just as a quick note, there's a special resource I think will be really helpful for all of you who are listening in. There's a tool that helps you understand a little bit about your patterns and where you might be falling for the wrong guys or the wrong stories in your love life, and it's called the Attraction archetype quiz. So if you go to attractiontype.com, you can learn which of the 4 attraction archetypes you are. And once you understand this, suddenly you're going to feel set free in your love life to really start taking control and understanding why it is that you are doing what it is that you might be doing when you're like, this isn't good for me, this is categorically not right for me, but I keep repeating the same pattern. So again, I would check that out. It's a really helpful resource for those who are listening. Attraction type and we'll leave a link in the description as well.

Cool. So the next prompt, it might be my favorite one. I probably should have saved it for last, but I made it number 4, which is: if you're feeling stuck with dating, pause for a moment and imagine someone who is secure, confident, and expects success. And then consider, how do they date? What is it that they're doing? What is their mindset? What is their thought process? What is their strategy? And then naturally, like, how could you date more like that? And so I think if you ask yourself, someone who's secure, confident, expects success, what is it that they're doing? Number one, it's easy. They're optimistic. They're not saying this is terrible, this is never going to work, woe is me. They're not, you know, being super negative and finding problems and being cynical. They're not doing any of that. They're being optimistic. I'm going to find somebody. Yeah. And this is all about when you're more optimistic, you're giving yourself more ways to win because you're optimistic and you're also looking for the positives. And so it's not just the, you know, you obviously win when you find the man of your dreams, your lifelong companion. That is the biggest win of them all. But to get to that big win, there's like 1,000 little wins along the way, and you gotta give those wins credit too. You know, some things like building your confidence, that's a win. Finding more exciting things to do in your life, taking on more activities, that's a win. Making connections with other women, that's a win. Learning how to next the wrong guys, that's a win. Being better at noticing the right guys, that's a win. Feeling more confident just talking to people out in public, that's a win, right? And it's like the people who are successful in dating take all of the wins. And one of the things that people are not successful when they get stuck, they only notice the losses. And so part of what goes into this too is just this constant optimistic mindset. Clients joke because I talk about this a lot, but it's the power of yet. I haven't found anybody, and I'll just always say yet, right? You just keep adding yet to the end of any kind of negative statement. It completely changes your your mindset about everything. Oh, you know, no one's responded to my online profile in the last 2 hours yet, right? Like, it's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's like, I haven't found someone yet. It's always the same thing. And so there's just something to people that are successful approach life this way. They know it's not that they're gonna be perfect. When things let them, it's fine, but The next one's coming. The next one's gonna work. This one didn't work. The next one's gonna work. This month isn't great. The next one's gonna be good. Like, that's how it works.

Definitely. And here at Love Strategies, with all of our clients, we have this incredible culture of sharing wins. And I'll share a very brief story. We released a Love Strategies app for just our clients. You have to be a client to use it. And I was like, I wonder how we're doing in the App Store as far as reviews. And I, I took a minute. I, 'cause I hadn't looked at it since we launched this about a year ago. Shame on me. But I looked at it and I'm like, oh my God, we have like a 4.8 out of 5 reviews. I wasn't surprised. I, I know our clients love what we do and it's amazing, but I'm like, okay, what was like the, what was the bad review? There's gotta be, there's a bad review in here.

Of course you gotta go to that. Always.

I had to, I had to, I trust me, the optimism is coming. The optimism is coming. And I scroll through and I find the one 2-star review. Everything else is 5 stars. And this person, one of our clients, clients was like, I love everything they do, but they have this one section in the program where everyone posts their wins, and it's really annoying because it blows up my phone and I keep getting pinged like all day long with all these like clients' stories about, you know, going on a date, meeting an amazing guy, finding a great relationship, or just feeling more confident, whatever it is. And I kind of chuckled to myself and I'm like, I kind of love this negative review.

I love it.

Like, there's something— yeah, it really is. Um, because our clients, all day long, they have to experience the small wins that are getting them closer and closer to their goals. And all day long, I'm telling you, Gary, I don't know about you, man, anytime I'm feeling down, which isn't very often— both of us are incredibly, by nature, optimistic human beings— but every once in a while, I'll be like, I want to see, you know, what's going on there. And there's like dozens every single day of these amazing wins and breakthroughs. I don't know, it just— it gets me pumped up. But most importantly, The person who's posting the win is saying to the world, I am winning, I'm making progress, things are happening. Therefore, they're going to start creating more and more wins in the future. Versus I know some coaching programs out there where they have like venting sessions where you can like vent in a certain area all your negativity. That is a no-no in my opinion. Bring that to a coach if you need to. I'm all for venting. But don't make it a part of your regular habits. It's not going to set you up for success.

Yeah, I think, I think sometimes, you know, with the dating world and these ideas of like, you know, you got to accept the small wins— like, I've had clients, I talk about this with clients, and they'll say, oh my gosh, that's so smart, that will totally help with dating. Because dating is filled with a lot of experiences where you just— not every person you're going to go out with is the one, right? So there's going to be a lot of what could be perceived as losses. And so this is a genius way to look at this. I'm like, thank you, but it's really— it's not in the sense of like every successful person on the planet approaches life this way. That's how you're successful. The most successful people, it's not that they haven't had setbacks, challenges, losses— they have. They just have learned how to take the wins along the way because those wins are fuel, right? So if you're starting to feel stuck, you just got to start looking around, be a little bit more optimistic, start looking, looking for some of those The next thing you have to do, the next prompt, number 5, is to get unstuck. Ask yourself, how could I treat dating more like experimentation or play and less like a job interview or a life-or-death mission? It's a little tongue-in-cheek because I think sometimes when you get stuck, it's because you're like, life, I gotta find the guy, clock's ticking. I told myself I was gonna have him found by, you know, arbitrary date in too short of a time frame. And I told myself this was going to happen. I got to make this happen. I got to make— gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta— I gotta interview these guys. I gotta find the flaws. I gotta move. I gotta move. I gotta move. Gotta go. Gotta go. And yet I get it. Like, I'm, I'm generally that way with a lot of things too. I can be pretty impatient. Um, but the fact of the matter is you can't white-knuckle love. It's, you know, finding love, it's not an intense pursuit, right? There's a saying, slow is smooth, And smooth is fast. That's more how finding love is. It's like you have to relax. It's like Adam and I were talking about, you know, writing and you know, the process of writing. You can't white knuckle writing. If you're like, I gotta get this done, I gotta get this done, all the creativity goes out the window. You can't really—

that was Gary's, that was Gary's pep talk today. 'Cause I came on at the beginning, I was like, oh man, I don't know. And I was, I was going through a real writing ebb for those of you who are writers. And I'm just like, ah, I just can't do it today. I'm just not in it. And Gary's like, dude, go for a walk. Have some fun. Relax, man. This isn't life or death mission here. Enjoy your day. Get in a good mood and have some fun with it. And if it's not fun, you're doing it wrong. You know, which is like the exact advice we give to our clients. It's, it's very ironic because I, at our last event, we had, we host events for our Lux clients who are our top tier clients. Uh, it's a very exclusive program we have where people fly into Boston and we have an amazing 3-day event, and I gave an entire presentation on fun, like the importance of fun, which is kind of ridiculous to give an hour-long talk on fun and dating. But I gotta say, people came out of that and they're like, oh my God, I've been taking this way too seriously and trying to white-knuckle love because I wanted to follow the strategy. I'm like, great, follow the strategy, but bring some fun along with you. Like, it's got to be enjoyable.

And that—

and if you do have that, then suddenly every interaction you have is enjoyable for the guy, it's enjoyable for you, you're going to be in a much better mindset, all of your behaviors will follow. But if you're just like, oh, gotta follow the process, gotta follow the steps, yada yada yada, trust me, you're gonna come on to every single date, it's gonna feel like an interview for like a CIA agent job, and it's, it's not gonna work, right? I can imagine what those interviews must be like. Must be really—

and just gonna— yeah, you're gonna be miserable, and like, it's so counterproductive to what you're trying to do. And I think one of the best ways to take this a little less seriously is to have what we talk about as an outcome-independent mindset. You just can't take it that seriously. A lot of the people you meet are not going to be the one, but here's the good news: it only takes one. And so one of the mindset shifts that I share with clients a lot is what you're doing when you're going out is you're trying to see, will this guy recognize the amazing opportunity that he has to get to know That's what you're trying to figure out. It's all about, is he going to know to take advantage of the opportunity in front of him, which is to get to know you? Like, it lowers the pressure. It makes it a little bit like, if it works, if he recognizes this, great. If he doesn't, his loss. Somebody else is going to for sure. And just this idea that, you know, when there is rejection— and I already use rejection in air quotes if you can't see me— but Sometimes rejection, when things don't work out, when things are— when you're incompatible with somebody, that's saving you from a lot of frustration. But when you get rejected or things don't work out, just know that it's redirection. It's telling you that this path wasn't going to be the right path. Let's find the lesson in this perhaps, and like find a different path. Experiment, explore, keep trying things out. It will click.

Moving on. One other prompt. Actually, we have two more, but the next one, I love this one. This is really fun for me because this is something that I feel like I need all the time to think about whenever I'm stuck in something. And that is, what's one thing I haven't tried because it feels too vulnerable, too weird, or too outside the norm, but might actually work? Because at the end of the day, if you want a different outcome, you need a different strategy. And typically, like, we see this with our clients all the time. With our process and the little love steps. There's some clients who are like, oh, I have no problem meeting guys. So guess what? They'll go out and meet tons and tons of guys, but they don't— they have challenges when it comes to having boundaries in a committed exclusive relationship. So guess what? They don't do any of that stuff. And then we have other clients who are really good at setting boundaries and relationships, but they suck at going out and meeting new guys. They don't want to do it. It's not that they suck, it's just that they don't want to do it, or they're really nervous to do it, or that it's just uncomfortable for them. So then they only lean into the whole boundary stuff. And what we're always advising our clients to do is to look at the area of our process that you are kind of staying away from, because that is likely the thing where you need to put most of your energy. Do the thing that feels weird. Do the thing that feels way outside the norm, right? When I used to coach men, I used to coach really successful guys to get out and be able to flirt and meet with you. And I would help these guys develop the confidence, the great body language, to be able to connect with you and flirt. And for most of the guys I worked with, they were typically a little bit shyer. They— the thought of going out and talking to a woman that they've never met and approaching her and doing it in an interesting way was like, no way were they ever going to do this. So one of the first things I would always do is just start the night where you got to go up and talk to any woman here and just do something way outside your comfort zone. It was such a crazy job, crazy time in my life. But I would watch these guys and they would come out and be like, you know what, that wasn't so bad, that wasn't so bad. Great, let's lean into that. Let's keep doing the thing that you've been trying to avoid your entire life and focus in on that. Because these guys had great other qualities alternatively that they were, you know, they were good conversationalists. They were pretty good in relationships, some of them. Now I'm painting with very broad strokes here, but generally speaking, they were okay in that front. They just really struggled when it came to initiating conversation. So guess what? That's all we're gonna do. We're just gonna focus in on that. And then once they fixed that and worked on that, guess what? It created amazing opportunities in their love life.

Yeah. And when it comes down to it, and I know this is very common thing to say, but so much of the magic, so to speak, happens outside of your comfort zone. And if you've been doing things a certain way for decades, it's going to feel a little intimidating to step outside of that comfort zone. But that's where the magic happens. That's where growth happens. And so if it doesn't feel a little bit weird, if you don't feel a little vulnerable doing it, you're probably playing it a little too safe. And it's like, you know, ask yourself, what is the one thing that is holding you back? And how can we start doing that? And, you know, rely on the support system around you, right? That, because that's really going to help. So speaking of that support system, the last one, last prompt to get you unstuck is what advice would I give a best friend who felt the way I feel right now? What would, if it wasn't me speaking to myself, what would I say to my best friend and your best friend? You're nice to them, aren't you? You love them. You're supportive, you're kind. They're the best at everything, right? You are never going to kick them while they're down. You're not going to be like, yeah, you're a loser. Like, some of the stuff that we say to ourselves, like, you can get really— I don't know, I'll speak for myself— I get really down on myself every once in a while. Like, this whole, like, not being able to run, it's like, gosh, like, you can just really just lay into yourself and be, like, really hard on yourself. Or, like, why aren't you better, tougher, stronger, more capable? I can just really, like, just not the best. Um, don't do that, right? Like, we have to remember, like, thinking about what you would say to a best friend is useful because it forces you to engage in what we call psychological distance. You give better advice, you give more thoughtful advice, and all that good stuff. But fundamentally, you have to remember, you are your own best friend. We all need to remember this. We all need to be a little bit kinder, gentler, more supportive to ourselves when we're stuck. And I think all these other prompts are ways that we can be much more supportive in ways that are not just going to placate. It's not like, you got this, you got this. Like that, that's feels nice for a moment, but it's not long-term helpful. The prompts that we talked about today are actually actionable. They're useful. They're going to shift perspectives. They're going to get you out of the rut that you may be finding yourself in. Them and really get you out there and, and having fun again, finding love and doing what you want to do.

Yeah, and speaking of having kind of a best friend who's in your corner, what I would offer all of you today to do is to apply for a what we call Love Strategy session. And that's where someone here at Love Strategies will get on a one-on-one Zoom with you and they'll connect with you. You know, we hire a lot of people here at Love Strategies, we train a lot of people, but Part of our hiring process is finding really empathetic people who can kind of feel like your best friend. Like they talk to you in a way that, you know, not, not inauthentically, but they're just the type of person who you can just kind of click with and get along with really quickly so that you can build that trust and that connection with. And on these sessions, the goal is to understand what's really going on. Why are we feeling stuck right now? What are the patterns that might be causing this? And then secondly, where do you want to go? What do you want in your relationship, not just in the next 2 months, but in the next 2 years to 20 years to 50 years? What's really important to you? And finally, we figure out a way to get there. We're going to bridge the gap, and maybe that's through our coaching with Love Accelerator, or maybe it's you go off on your own with a strategy. Either way, these sessions are free. They're an ability for you to connect with someone on my team and get the solutions you really want. So if that sounds good to you and you want some help in your love life, just head on over to loveapply.com. There's It's a short, you know, application process. If we think you're a fit, you'll jump on one of these sessions and we'll guide you every single step of the way. The way— we'll leave a link in the description as well. So again, that's loveapply.com. Gary, thank you so much. I think this is going to help a lot of people feel unstuck, and we want nothing more than for you to have hope, because the right man, he exists out there. He is somewhere. He's looking for you. He wants you in his life. Now let's go get him. Thanks, Gary. All right, talk soon. Bye-bye.

Love it.