To all my single ladies with awesome careers, this one’s for you! Amazing, fulfilling careers are wonderful things. A great job can bring a lot of meaning to your life and make you feel valued. For some women, a career can be the main love of their life. And to them I say, mazel tov! You’ve found what makes you the best version of you. Go forth and live your life. But, there are women who need more than a career. They need love and romance to feel fulfilled. I count myself among this group of women. And it can be hard to focus on finding love when your career is taking off and taking up a ton of time. It might even be so hard that you start thinking that your career is keeping you single. Here’s what to do.
Make a plan
Alright, stop panicking and treat this like a work problem. For so many career women, if they applied their work life skills to their personal life, they’d be smooth sailing. It’s just hard to transfer those skills. (Believe me, I struggle with this, too!) What do you do when an issue arises at work? You stay calm. You organize. You plan. You execute. Do the same thing here. Look at the problem. What’s keeping you from investing in your romantic life? Are you spending too much time at work? Are you traveling so much, you’re never home? Are your hours so unpredictable that you wind up canceling a lot of promising dates? No matter what the issue is, the solution is setting boundaries. Maybe you need to take two nights a week where you insist on leaving at a reasonable time. Maybe you decide you need to take a month off from travel. Maybe you stop working on weekends. Whatever boundary will fix your problem, lay it down and stick to it. You’ll be surprised by how painlessly your workflow will work around these new ground rules.
Look for overlap
So, you work a lot. That’s a fact that’s not going to change as long as you’re in your job. But, perhaps you can maximize those work hours into romance hours if you keep your eyes open for opportunities. I’m not saying hit on your assistant. But, maybe you have to spend a Friday night at a conference when you’d rather be dating. Well, take a look around a concert. Anyone with a bare ring finger who looks like your type? Or is there a professional group you can join that might double as a singles mixer for you? Can you make friends with some clients and get invited to their personal events, which would be a great way to meet new people? There’s a lot of ways to meet the right guy. You just need to keep your eyes wide open.
Decide what’s important
If you’ve done the first two steps and you’re seeing no change in your workload or your romance opportunities, then you might have a tough decision to make. If your job really won’t budge and it’s taking too much time and energy away from finding true love, you have to decide what’s important to you. I’m not saying quit your job and pursue online dating fulltime. But, if you decide that finding love is what’s most important for you, you may have to find a new job that’s less involved time or travel-wise. You have to make the space in your life for someone special. If that’s not there, that special someone isn’t going to show up. So, think to yourself, is finding a guy and getting married your top priority? It doesn’t have to be, of course. But, if it is, you may want to make some major adjustments to your career.
Good luck, ladies. Know that I feel your pain in a major way.
