I stopped making New Year’s resolutions about three years ago. Like so many of us, I found myself falling short of the resolutions quickly into the New Year. Instead, I make goals for the first part of the year and for some reason I’ve been much more successful. In addition to the popular goals of losing weight and professional goals, I encourage you to make finding love a goal this year.
At the end of 2012, I was speaking with one of my sister-friends about her visions for 2013. She’s been single, by choice, for about two years following a very difficult break-up. However, throughout the end of last year she began to express a willingness to get back out there. After working on some self-empowering and loving, she was now ready to love.
“Well, make that a goal this year,” I encouraged. She laughed at me and rejected the notion that you can make finding love a goal. Instead, she said she would just see how things played out and if God meant for her to find love then, she would. I completely disagreed with this passive approach to love. We are so aggressive about the other things we want in life; finding love shouldn’t be any different.
I’m a firm believer that you must set a goal and then, put intention, effort and faith behind it for you to reach it. The same is true with finding love. You must be an active seeker of love to find it. Now, I don’t mean you have to be thirsty or desperate, but setting your mind and heart toward the goal of love increases your chances of finding it. By actively putting the energy out there, you’re bound to get something good back.
And since I’m no hypocrite, I joined the challenge with her. When setting my goals this week for 2013, I added finding love to the list of other professional and personal goals I wrote out. Printing out my goals and placing them either by my desk or on the back of my door is a practice I started when I was a teenager. The act of daily visualization serves me when I’ve gotten a slow start or I am lacking in motivation. And, this year, right there is the sentence, “Find and experience romantic love.” Not only is this a reminder that it’s a goal, it will also inform my actions from day-to-day.
One of my favorite quotes is, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagine,” by Henry David Thoreau. Just as we go after our professional goals, we can pursue our romantic goals too. Be aggressive about finding romance this year by making love a goal.
Wishing you love and ceaseless joy! Follow @NathanHWilliams on Twitter.
Nathan’s book INSPIRATION: Profiles of Black Women Changing Our World is available now.