Are you buying a house or finding a spouse?

Have you been searching for the perfect house to buy, but you keep finding over-priced crap? Or are you one of the lucky ones who came across your dream home right away, and now you live in your own version of paradise?

Searching for your perfect house is a lot like searching for a partner in life. You may find exactly what you’re looking for immediately, or you might spend years looking with nothing to show for it except exhaustion and despair.

How buying a house compares to finding a spouse:

1. Looks can be deceiving.

You see a beautiful picture of a house and excitedly schedule a tour. As soon as you step inside, you’re disappointed by everything. The appliances are old, the layout is awful, and the floors creak with every step. Sure, you could put in thousands of dollars to renovate, but is it really worth the trouble?

You’re swiping on Tinder and see the most gorgeous man in the world. After texting with him for a few days, you agree to meet in person. Thankfully, he’s just as hot as his picture. Unfortunately, he’s lacking enough brain cells to carry on a conversation. After struggling through a 30-minute coffee date, you go your separate ways.

2. Compromising is key.

You love cooking elaborate meals and need lots of counter space, but you tell your agent that a tiny kitchen will suffice. It’s not ideal, but you can always buy some extra folding tables and put them out while cooking. If everything else about the house is great, then this compromise is worth it.

You’ll never find a spouse who matches every single thing you’re looking for. If you like to wake up at 6 am but your partner sleeps until noon, try to meet in the middle on weekends and wake up together at 9 am. Just don’t compromise on your values.

3. Lying will backfire.

Although compromising is important for buying a house and finding a spouse, lying won’t get you closer to your goal. If you tell your agent you can afford an $800,000 home, but your budget only allows for $300,000, then the truth will eventually come out.

Lying about who you are or what you want in life may get you a spouse, but it will ultimately backfire. So your divorce hasn’t been finalized yet? Don’t keep that hidden from your current partner. She has a right to know, and she’s more likely to stick around if she hears the truth from you.

4. It’s a numbers game.

Your perfect house is out there. You just have to find it. There are millions of home styles and millions of neighborhoods to search in. You might even find your ideal home and make an offer, but someone else outbid you. It’s discouraging for the time being, but you’ll get back out there and find the house that’s meant for you.

You’ve been in the dating game for a very long time. You didn’t meet your spouse in high school or college. You’re now in your 30s and wondering if love will ever happen for you. It’s all a numbers game. You will meet your soulmate. You just have to keep on moving along in life and being your best self.

Buying a house and finding a spouse are both difficult. They take time, effort, and sometimes years of hard work until you see results. You might take a tour of hundreds of homes before seeing the right one. And you may go on thousands of dates before meeting your future spouse. Your house and your spouse are both out there.

When will you meet your soulmate? Have you already come across the love of your life, or is this person still out there, waiting to be discovered by you?

The average person meets 80,000 people in a lifetime (assuming you interact with three new people a day). This means that you are introduced by name and may exchange at least a few words. But what about all the people you pass by without saying a word? Perhaps you quickly make eye contact and then look away.

It is estimated that you’ll see between 90,000 to 42.5 million faces in your lifetime.

That’s a lot of faces! Among all those faces, could one of them be your soulmate? When I was a teenager, my math teacher told me that I will likely meet the person I’m going to marry by the time I turn 18 years old. After getting more clarification, I realized that he meant I’ll be in the same vicinity as my soulmate at some point by that age. I may pass him on the street or look at him from afar, but I will not necessarily have any interaction with him.

By the time I turned 18, I had already lived in three major cities and traveled to a variety of places. There’s a very good chance that I did meet my soulmate, but if so, I wasn’t aware of it.

I heard another statistic that said you have a 35% chance of ending up with someone from your past.

That made me reminisce about all my previous relationships. Did I give up on one of my boyfriends too easily? But could it also mean that my soulmate is a friend or acquaintance that I knew from childhood? I had tons of interactions with all sorts of people, so maybe my soulmate was a boy who sat across from me in science class.

So… When will you meet your soulmate?

It’s impossible to give you an exact timeframe. Based on all the people you have met so far, your soulmate may already be a part of your life. Or it could very well be someone you knew in your childhood or teenage years. If you lived a sheltered life, your special someone might still be out there, waiting to be found.

What stage of life are you in? Are you just entering adulthood, and you feel like the world is at your fingertips? Or do you desperately want to find a life partner and start a family?

While doing research for my book, I came across a theory developed by psychologist Daniel Levinson. His theory, entitled the “Seasons of Life,” identifies different stages of life that adults go through.

What stage of life are you in?

1. Early Adult Transition (Ages 17-22)

You become an adult and choose to attend college or enter the workforce. You may leave home and begin your first serious relationship.

2. Entering the Adult World (Ages 22-28)

You start to make more decisions about who you are, what you want to do, and what you value in life.

3. Age 30 Transition (Ages 28-33)

You could have major lifestyle changes at this stage, like getting married or having kids.

4. Settling Down (Ages 33-40)

You begin to establish a routine, reach goals, and behave like a mature adult. You may already be a parent and have more responsibilities in life.

5. Mid-Life Transition (Ages 40-45)

You evaluate your life and may change your values and your vision of the future. You could get divorced or change careers during this time period.

6. Entering Middle Adulthood (Ages 45-50)

You start to make choices about your future and think about the legacy you’re leaving.

7. Culmination of Middle Adulthood (Ages 50-60)

You may reach the end of your working life and make plans for retirement.

8. Late Adulthood (Ages 60+)

You reflect on life and think about all the decisions you’ve made thus far.

When it comes to dating, it’s important to confirm that the person you’re dating is in the same life stage as you. The age range isn’t exact, as you may be 25 years old but feel ready to settle down. Or, on the other hand, you may be 45 years old and still searching for your life partner.

You don’t want to waste each other’s time by dating someone in a different life stage. If you are ready to get married and have kids, then it’s pointless to date someone who wants to play the field for a few more years.

Love is like gambling. It’s your choice if you want to take the risk, and you may be one of the big winners.

As a child, I played poker with my family every few weeks. We played with poker chips, and I often ended the night with the most chips. Everyone in my family is competitive, so hopefully, I legitimately won. I told myself that I was a skilled gambler, but, in truth, I was probably just lucky.

As an adult, I joined a group of friends and played weekly poker games with them. I didn’t do as well as I had in my younger days. Perhaps I needed to refine my skills, or maybe I was just getting dealt a bad combination of cards for every hand.

Through my friends, I was introduced to a professional poker player. I went on a date with him and asked him what it takes to win. He told me that you need three things to win when you gamble. I never forgot what he said, and years later, I realized that you can apply those same three things to love.

What’s needed to win in love and gambling:

1. Luck

I’ve been to Las Vegas a few times. I never won more than $20, but people consistently told me that as soon as I lose a hand, stop playing! It means that my luck has run out.

I dated a guy for two months, and our first date was amazing. I felt like the luckiest woman in the world. But then our second date was terrible. I should’ve stopped dating him, but I continued. Luck was not on my side anymore. After enduring two months of Hell with him, I finally accepted that it was time to part ways.

Everyone can be lucky in love, but you can’t only count on that to find an ideal partner. Sure, luck is a factor, but it’s not the only thing that matters.

2. Skill

To become an expert in any field, it takes 10,000 hours of hard work and dedication. However, Josh Kaufman gave a Ted Talk proving that “it only takes 20 hours to learn a skill to the point of being reasonably proficient.”

If you want to excel in poker, you must learn the tricks of the trade. You have to continue playing until you’re skilled enough to win. The same goes for dating. Finding love takes practice and skill. You won’t just fall into a successful relationship. It takes time and effort to develop and grow as a couple.

3. Reading People

You may be the luckiest person in the world. And you may have all the skills necessary to get what you want. But if you don’t know how to read people, you’ll never make it in love or gambling.

I probably got the most chips playing poker with my family because I knew them all so well. There was some luck and skill involved, but I was also extremely perceptive. I looked into their eyes and could tell if they were bluffing.

When I gambled as an adult, I didn’t know what the other players were thinking when I looked at them. They all had a poker face, and I felt lost and confused, unable to read their minds.

If you think you’re a lucky person when it comes to love, and you developed dating skills through years of experience, then perhaps what you’re lacking is the ability to read people.

Were you born lucky? You might have all the luck in the world, but you’re still struggling to find your soulmate. I can help you become a skilled dater. It just takes a few weeks of relationship coaching, and then you’ll be on the right track. Once you put in the effort, all your dreams will come true.

What is your attachment style in a relationship?

Do you latch onto someone and never let go? Or do you shy away from any type of intimacy and run for the hills?

In the 1960s, John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth did an experiment on children known as the “strange situation.” Depending on how the children reacted during this test, they were placed into one of four categories of attachment. This study was later turned into attachment styles in romantic relationships. Learn your attachment style and how it shows up in your relationship.

The Four Attachment Styles:

Secure

Low anxiety and low avoidance

• Comfortable with intimacy and being in a committed relationship
• Able to trust your partner and reveal your emotions
• Communication comes naturally for you

Anxious

High anxiety and low avoidance

• Needs continuous reassurance from partner
• Craves closeness and intimacy immediately
• Extremely dependent

Avoidant

Low anxiety and high avoidance

• Uncomfortable with emotional intimacy
• Tendency to pull away from others
• Extremely independent

Fearful

High anxiety and high avoidance

• Afraid of intimacy and being rejected
• Low self-esteem
• Tendency to pull away while also craving attention

Let’s take a look at the male characters from the TV show Friends. Chandler’s attachment style is Fearful. He’s anxious to find someone, but then he runs away as soon as the intimacy begins to grow. Luckily, Monica comes into his life and teaches him about emotional vulnerability. She has her own anxiety to work through, but they end up balancing each other out and being a perfect match.

Joey is the epitome of Avoidant. He has no anxiety about relationships, but he avoids them like the plague. He loves his independence and hooking up with different women regularly. Luckily for him, his best friend Chandler is also uncomfortable opening up, so their relationship thrives mainly on a surface level.

Ross is desperate for intimacy. He has lots of anxiety, just like his sister, but he doesn’t avoid that closeness when he finds a willing partner. His attachment style is Anxious. Because his friends are both uncomfortable opening up, he searches for a woman to share the emotional intimacy that he craves.

As you can see, Secure is the ideal attachment style. Unfortunately, your attachment style develops at a young age. It all depends on your upbringing. If you’re not happy with how your style manifests in a relationship, you can work on yourself and do personal development to change and grow. I can coach you through your dating dilemmas if you’re not satisfied!