How To Find Mr. Right

So you’re looking for Mr. Right, your soulmate. The yin to your yang.

I’m going to tell you how to find your soulmate and how to recognize him when he does appear.

How To Find Your Soulmate

What exactly is a soul mate? They’re that one person in the world that can treat you how you deserve to be treated, inspire you to be the best version of yourself and accept you no matter what.

They fill your stomach up with butterflies and your heart with a powerful warmth that can never be extinguished.

Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this Mr. Right doesn’t actually exist.

The truth is a whole lot more complicated. But don’t worry, I’m going to give you a blueprint on how to go creating that perfect harmony within yourself so that when someone worthy of your love and attention does come along you’ll be able to embrace them with no hesitation.

The origin of the soulmate

First, let’s talk about the concept of a soulmate. The term itself dates back to 1822 in a letter from poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in which he says

“To be happy in Married Life … you must have a Soul-mate.”

The idea of every human having a perfect counterpart who will complete them goes back a great deal further. Plato quotes the poet Aristophenes as saying the following on the subject of soul mates:

“When one meets with his other half, the actual half of himself … the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight… even for a moment.”

Far be it from me to criticize Plato but a lot has changed since 400 BC. We now have a somewhat better understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe. We’ve come to understand the importance of critical thinking and individual perspective.

What I’m trying to do here is offer my own perspective on romantic love. What you take from it depends on you.

Stop looking for your soulmate

I think the idea that there’s a perfect person for each of us suggests that there’s one set version of ourselves that never changes. We’re just one half waiting for someone to complete us.

Not only does this disregard everyone who isn’t interested in marriage as incomplete, for those of us who are looking for long term love, this is a still a very disheartening way to look at the world. It can lead us to put our lives on hold, just waiting for this soulmate so we can finally become our true selves.

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I think about it differently. To me, life is the process of change and growth. You really do have the power to be whoever you want to be and even if you don’t choose to strive and grind to change your situation, you’re changed, matured, and weathered by the natural course of your life.

Does this mean that we can’t find romantic love that’s powerful and long-lasting? Of course not.

I’m suggesting that the people we choose to love are even more important than some hypothetical soulmate.

We fall for people throughout our life in different ways, with different levels of intensity and for different periods of time.

These people teach us about who we are, who we want to be, and what we want out of life.

Relationships come and go but just because one person didn’t turn out to be our prince charming, doesn’t mean they weren’t a valuable part of our life.

Keep growing and changing

What does this mean for our search for Mr. Right? It means that we can stop judging every romantic encounter against this invisible yardstick. Take every day as it comes and don’t try to force a relationship to fit a certain set of guidelines.

Think about your first kiss. Looking back, I’m sure you’re glad you’re not currently married to that person and living in the suburbs. But do you wish it never happened? Probably not.

It’s just one part of what makes you who you are today. I think of every relationship in that way.

You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.

–  Sam Keen

Seeing things in this way is liberating. When you know that you’re enough on your own, you can finally stop waiting and start living.

So what does this look like in practice? Well, the truth is it’s different for every person but the first step is letting go of this idea that there’s one perfect person out there who will make everything all better.

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Then it’s about focusing on building a life for yourself that’s perfect for you, even while you’re single. If you can be that best version of yourself–the person you’ve always wanted to be–you’ll be set free from desperation and loneliness.

To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect.

-Criss Jami

When you know exactly what it is you want out of life, you can see exactly what you want out of a relationship.

You won’t be beholden to the ideas society, your family, and your friends have about what a relationship is supposed to look like and you’ll be able to build relationships that give you what you want and need, regardless of what people think.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, stop searching for a soulmate and start searching for yourself. You’ll be surprised at what you might find.

Lucy Goldman

Lucy Goldman is a women's dating coach and commitment expert. She's a staff writer at LoveLearnings, and host of LoveLearnings TV on YouTube.