When I am wrestling in my head with a problem, the answer is often quite simple – do the hard thing first.
With dating, the hard thing initially was trying dating apps after years of proclaiming I’d never use them. Within a few weeks, I got past that.
The next dating challenge was how to approach women (essentially strangers) in public to ask for their phone number and a date. By now, I knew exactly what to do – go up and ask. (I’m 0 for 3 so far – Two were married. One was in a long term relationship).
A recent challenge was thinking about someone I broke it off with after one date because I didn’t feel “a connection”. I though about her a lot this past week. She was attractive in many ways – creative, musical, entrepreneurial, intelligent, sweet, flirtatious, responsible. I had some regret that I hadn’t given us a decent chance to get to know each other.
But I knew what to do. I reached out to her and told her this. Then I asked her out on a 2nd date.
She declined graciously saying she had begun dating someone else over the past few weeks.
Drats.
Doing the hard thing doesn’t always get me the results I desire (see above examples). But it always gets me results.
It always clears my head and enables me to plow forward.
Perhaps that’s even better than getting what I want.