Whether you're looking for someone to spend your life with or want to create a business, you might wonder how to find the right partner. Someone who is really compatible with you.
So, let's start at the beginning of that potential relationship. And that beginning is when you first meet someone.
Perhaps you run into them at a party, in a supermarket, or a networking event. Maybe a friend introduces you. Or you might connect on a dating app or Social Media. Either way, the following will apply.
While finding the right partner involves an element of luck, your approach can be what makes or breaks your chances.
Concretely, let’s talk about how your expectations can stop you from finding (or rather, recognizing) the right romantic partner for you,
someone you can fall in love with.
Interestingly, the following considerations apply to other relationships, too.
For instance, while I’m not looking for a romantic partner anymore, I still need to find the right person/people in many different areas of life — such as when it comes to business collaborators, coaches, or accountability partners.
To show you how universal these principles are, I will describe how I’m applying them in the context of my business relationships.
The role of expectations in finding the right partner
In relationships of any kind, it's crucial that you
learn how to manage expectations skillfully as this will minimize disappointments. However, expectations also play a role at the very beginning of a relationship.
As my husband Elijah recently pointed out, there are two main approaches that people use to sabotage their chances of finding the right partner.
They either have overly high or unnecessarily low expectations. Let's consider these in more details:
Overly high expectations
People who fall into the first camp have troubles with finding the right partner because nobody meets their strict criteria.
For instance, you might have a friend who is single and whose criteria for a life partner are virtually impossible to fulfill. In that situation, your friend is sabotaging any chances of finding the right partner by putting the bar so high that nobody can get over it.
As musician Christina Milian remarks, not having overly high expectations can be powerful: “I feel like if you don’t put too much expectations and too much high hopes into things, everything will fall into place.”
How I’m applying this in my own life and business: I strive to not place overly high hopes on things and allow myself to be positively surprised.
For instance, one of the best business collaboration I ever had just…happened. I hadn’t planned for it. I wasn’t expecting anything to come from the phone call me and the other person had scheduled (other than an interesting conversation).
I just got on the call, we really clicked, and our business collaboration developed from there. Can you see how that’s similar to going on a romantic date with someone without having huge expectations and while you’re just enjoying your time?
Overly low expectations
In contrast, if someone’s expectations are too low, virtually everybody they meet can make the jump. As a result, they end up settling for somebody who is not the ideal person for them,
such as when you don’t share the same values.
An example of that is getting together with a person who is disrespectful, unreliable or unkind — which often happens when people don’t fully trust that they deserve to be treated well.
Or, as entrepreneur Joel Brown puts it: “We only get what we believe that we deserve. Raise the bar, raise your standards and you will receive a better outcome.”
How I’m applying this in my own life and business: I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten a lot more selective when it comes to people I consider collaborating with in my business.
There are certain things I just don’t want to deal with…and being clear about the expectations I have of someone before I consider collaborating with them can save me a lot of time and energy.
Isn’t how I’m approaching business collaborations quite similar to being selective about who you consider going on a second or third date with?
The Goldilocks Zone of finding the right partner
Elijah remarked that beyond these extremes of “too much” and “too little” expectations, there is a zone that is “just right” — the Goldilocks Zone.
As you may know, this term comes from an old fairy tale turned into a children’s story —
Goldilocks and
the Three Bears. In one of the many versions of this story, a little girl called Goldilocks comes across a house occupied by three bears of different sizes — a large, a middle-sized and a small one.
Goldilocks helps herself to the bears’ belongings by testing their porridge, chairs, and beds. With each category of items, she finds that there is one that is “too much” and another that is “too little.”
However, there is also one that is “just right” for her. (Hooray!)
Since Goldilocks is really hungry and has read socialist critiques of private property, she proceeds to eat the porridge that is “just right” for her.
But back to her process of identifying the right bowl of porridge. What can we learn from that?
Right-sizing your expectations
When you want to find the right partner, you need to sort through your expectations with the same discernment Goldilocks used.
Remember that Goldilocks didn’t just pick the first bowl/chair/bed (or the second, for that matter). She wouldn’t have been as happy with either of these. At the same time, Goldilocks also wasn’t so fussy that she decided all the bowls of porridge weren’t good enough for her…which would have resulted in her going hungry.
As you can see, it’s really about Goldilocks having identified the Goldilocks Zone of expectations.
Typically, we don’t automatically find ourselves there.
We need to work on rightsizing our expectations.
This often includes trial and error.
For instance, when I first considered collaborating with others in my business, I rather desperately wanted to feel like part of a team. As a solopreneur, I was missing the interaction with others. That’s why I was willing to collaborate with everyone who showed even the slightest interest in working with me— which isn’t a much better idea than being willing to date just anyone.
I’m not doing that anymore. Nowadays, I have a number of criteria someone would have to meet for me to want to collaborate with them.
At the same time, I also can’t expect the people I’m collaborating with to be “perfect” (however I might define that). If that was my expectation, I’d never get to collaborate with anyone.
How to know if your
high
expectations prevent you from finding the right partner
Grab a list and write down all your non-negotiable expectations in a partner.
Then, take a moment to consider if a single person can fulfill all these requirements.
Hint: if the description of your ideal partner sounds like a cross between the enlightened Dalai Lama, the super-rich-and-supposedly-sexy guy from “50 Shades of Grey” and wickedly smart Marie Curie, you probably should get back to the drawing board.
If your expectations are too high (“I want to date a billionaire, Noble Prize-winning, spiritual saint who moonlights as a supermodel…wait, did I forget something?”), you exclude everybody.
People like that exist…in fiction.
They’re called
“Mary Sue” (or her male equivalent).
Readers are typically not fond of them because perfect people are boring.
In my case, if I can’t even stand reading a book with a “Mary Sue” character, chances are that I wouldn’t want to collaborate with them for an extended period of time.
How to know if your
low
expectations prevent you from finding the right partner
How do you know if your expectations are too low?
Read through your list of expectations and ask yourself if pretty much everyone is able to fulfill your criteria.
If your expectations are too low, you exclude…nobody.
Your expectations should exclude some people. Otherwise, what’s the point of having them?
And, because humans are not…well…porridge, the other person gets a say in the whole matter (also known as “affirmative consent”).
(Side note: I never thought I’d use “porridge” and “affirmative consent” in the same sentence…never a boring day!)
As a result, one expectation that definitely should go on your list is: “wants to be with me” (or something along those lines).
In my case, my ideal business collaborators would want to collaborate with me as much as I want to collaborate with them. Unequal relationships of any kind don’t work well.
"Right-sizing" your expectations makes it easier for you to identify the right partner
