In Love with with Great Potential?

I'm seeing this cycle time and time again. Young women (and sometimes men too) falling in love with someone who they see great potential in. They justify these relationships to others who have noticed the red flags by saying, "Oh but I just see the man/woman they can be!" or "they're working on becoming what I need". Unfortunately, the reality is that for very few of these relationships will that potential ever become a reality and again ladies/guys are left disappointed, brokenhearted, and pining away for what "could have been" rather than the reality of what was.

Potential...You know what potential is? Just wishful thinking. A possibility that doesn't exist unless it's fulfilled.

My advice to all the singles out there, don't date the potential you see, date the reality because that potential is no guarantee. No matter how much love or time you put into trying to change someone into the potential you see in them, the truth is that the only person that can decide to make the change is them. As long as you're hanging around loving them (and nagging them) for who they are, the longer they'll remain just as they are.

I challenge you to decide what you're looking for in your future mate and to settle for nothing less. In doing so, you can more freely love them because they don't need to be told by you how to act and what to do....they'll just do it! I know for myself, part of my own process of change (becoming less self focused and more others focused) came about from my own relationship with God. As I started to understand how God loved others, and how he intended me to love others, I stopped demanding that all my needs be fulfilled by my dating partners and started seeing that only God could fulfill them. In turn, I attracted my husband, a man who has a selfless heart for serving others wholeheartedly, without second thought. He saw in me a woman fully relying on God and and I saw in him a man that loved God in such a way that obedience to Him was the most important thing. That meant that IF GOD wanted him to change, he would. I knew I could love a man with such a willing heart because I knew he would love me just as I had always desired.

No more settling my friends!