Don’t settle...know your worth

I like using my friends’ quotes because they always have the most interesting things to say. As girls, we usually talk about these things – yeah, love and all that mushy stuff! One of them, when this topic came up, insisted that we weren’t getting any younger and that we needed to make it work with whichever promising character wanted to court us whether our hearts skipped a beat when he smiled at us or not!To some extent, she was right – I mean how long can a girl wait? Every year that goes by is a wrinkle getting ready to show itself or menopause getting closer to the door. However, I don’t believe in settling for someone.I’m a wonderful human being – at least the people who know me think so – I deserve to be with someone I love and who loves me. That is what I tell myself every day.In most cases, settling means that we have resigned, we have given up on something, and are pretending that we are perfectly happy with things when we’re not. This leads to resentment, anger, hostility, and of course, the dismal feeling that somewhere in our life we made such a tremendous error that it will take three bulldozers to fix it.Settling means giving up on finding someone who literally sweeps us off our feet and makes us fall madly and wickedly in love with them or resigning to the fact that the person we are pining for isn’t headed in our direction. There can be a million and one logical and practical reasons for settling with someone, but the reality in our gut tells us that it’s not right, regardless of the reason.I’m sure some of you are challenging my thinking. You might ask yourself – should I marry someone out of love, say a doctor with a 7-figure salary, great personality, and charm, or wait around forever for the married love of my life to come to his senses? Okay, no. Nevertheless, will you really be happy with the doctor whose charm and personality do not move you whatsoever?How fair are you being with yourself? If you are pinning for someone unavailable (like a married guy) then you have a lot of internal work to do in order to let them go – that means finding ways to dissolve a relationship that does not exist. Because while he is still married, you are miserably waiting and that is not healthy.Settling often implies that there is something else you’d rather be doing, someone else you’d rather be with, and the number one reason for doing so is the lack of belief that you are truly worth your preferences. People often don’t feel as though they deserve the best and so they settle for something subsidiary that they can live with.While we need to be responsible during the time that we are trying to create the life we want, we can’t just throw our hands up and settle because we don’t feel we are worth waiting for. We are – no matter how fast you think your clock is ticking. Guilt is the number one dream and aspiration thief, even in relationships. Many of us grew up feeling guilty about wanting, guilty about things we forgot, things we neglected, or things we simply chose not to do at the time that we are now skilled guilt mongers.If you learn to purge the guilt, you will be able to stop settling for everything in life, including partners. You are worth waiting for. Fulfil your desires, know your dreams, and don’t be afraid to take the steps that get you there.