Do you think you’re too old for love? Maybe you think dating is for younger people; it can seem hard to meet new people when you’re over 40. It doesn’t matter if you’re 35 or 75, the belief that you’re too old for love can dash your hopes and cause you to keep your love life on the backburner while you pursue other interests.

The belief that love has an expiration date can create feelings of loneliness and anxiety that are not warranted. Whether you’re feeling the pressure of a ticking clock to start a family, or you’re entering your Golden Years worrying you’ll spend them alone, it’s the belief that you’re too old for love that’s the actual problem.

You’ve changed your beliefs throughout your life, and no matter your age you can do so again. If you were raised to believe in Santa Claus finding out that he isn’t real may have triggered feelings of sadness and hurt. You probably don’t have any of those negative feelings anymore and it’s just an anecdotal story from your past.

Here’s the good news: there’s no age limit on dating or falling in love! And no matter how old you are, the desire to find someone special is still there. Because sharing your life with the love of your life is a natural desire, we’re meant to couple up and live in communities. The key to remaining hopeful is to focus on the actual problem: your mindset and limiting beliefs.

Focus On What You Can Change

You can’t go back in time and make changes to the past, but you can change your negative patterns and create new strategies for love right now in the present regardless of your age. Love doesn’t have an age limit, nor does it discriminate based on where you live, the events of the past, or your appearance.

Growing older gives you wisdom to select a life partner through a mature selection process. Recently, two of our clients (both never married and in their third act) got married to lovely men who cherish and adore them. Many of our clients in their 70’s have found the lasting love they had doubted was possible for them. They were willing to release their limiting beliefs and hidden barriers to love.

You can embrace the idea that you’re never too old for love! Look around, you’ll find proof all around you once you embrace the idea of changing your mindset.

Release Limiting Beliefs That Diminish Your Happiness

Your beliefs create your reality, even when it comes to love. The notion that long-lasting love just happens when least expect it is a myth. So is the idea that love is beyond your control, or that if it’s meant to be it will be.

Confirmation bias has a profound effect on how you interpret the events of your life. Your mind is a meaning-making machine, and even though you can’t change the plot points of your past, you can change the meanings you’ve assigned to past events. These meanings create your belief system and shape your experience of reality. (You are very powerful!)

No matter your age you can change the belief that you’re too old for love by bringing awareness to all the thoughts that don’t serve your goal of wanting to share your life with a romantic partner. Write them out and journal about them to become more aware of the actions you take (or don’t take) because of these false beliefs.

If it doesn’t serve your goal, then cancel the thought the moment you realize you’re having it. So the next time you think, “I’m too old to do that,” immediately cancel the thought. Say to yourself out loud or in your mind, “Cancel! Cancel! Cancel!” Then affirm what you wish to believe instead, for example, “I am worth loving!”

Embrace The Power To Change Your Beliefs

Your beliefs are not set in stone. By having an open mind you can find evidence to change your mind. A curious mind is a youthful mind. Science has proven the elasticity of the brain (even later in life), and contrary to popular belief you can teach an old dog new tricks.

The desire for love is the spark that can create a blaze of transformation when you change your negative thoughts to positive ones. Realize that you’ve deluded yourself into thinking that you’re too old for love. Look around you online, offline, with people you know, and with strangers, look for older couples holding hands, spending time together, or other acts of affection.

This process will take time. Remember, you’ve held on to your limiting beliefs about love for some time and it will take time to create a new habit. That’s all your thoughts are after all — a habit. Commit to a minimum of 40 days to changing your limiting beliefs about love, and you’ll experience real change in your love life.

You’re never too old for love, and upgrading your belief system to be in alignment with your desire for love is the most important step to let love in at any age.

Don’t Let Your Past Experiences Determine Your Future

Believing you’re too old for love often comes from your relationship history. All your past experiences with love still have an emotional charge, they exert a strong influence on your current behavior. For example, say your spouse cheated on you and you felt crushed from that experience. Moving forward you’ll try to avoid being betrayed again. So you build a wall around your heart and do whatever you can to avoid dating potential cheaters.

Your subconscious mind begins highlighting any behavior that could be a red flag. You may even take on the belief that everyone cheats, and no one can be trusted to be faithful to you.

This may seem like an extreme response, but it’s a common reaction to heartbreak and disappointment.

This is how people treat love differently than everything else they desire in life. For example, asking for a raise and not getting it may be disappointing, but it doesn’t derail people from excelling at their careers (in fact for some this experience may fuel them to excel). Even small disappointments in love can stop people of all ages from moving toward their desired goal.

Rather than looking for what you don’t want so you can avoid it, (like trying not to think of a pink elephant) put the past behind you by releasing the emotional charge on those past events. Forgiveness is the key to move forward so you can create the love you desire.

Begin a practice of forgiveness for yourself and others. Ultimately forgiveness is for you because it sets you free from the past. Your heart is never too old for love. Manifesting your ideal relationship is possible at every age and stage of life!

Learn & Grow Without Closing Your Heart

The key to not closing your heart is to learn from hurtful past experiences and change your strategies so you don’t repeat them. Develop a mindset that your experiences are here to teach you and encourage you to grow. Everything is happening for you, not to you.

You’re not responsible for the behavior of others, but you are responsible for whether or not you take other people’s behavior personally. Their behavior informs you of their capacity, and your reaction to their behavior informs you about yourself. You can be in control of the meanings you assign to each of your experiences. No matter who disappointed or hurt you, it’s up to you to let go of the past and allow your heart to stay open.

You can mine your past relationships for golden nuggets of learning. Believing that everything is working out for your highest good aligns your mindset with achieving your goals in love. Imagine that every time someone has disappointed you is so you can grow past them and become the person you need to be in order to bring in a beloved relationship.

Growing into being the right person makes every experience a gift. You only grow through challenges, so all the ones you’ve been through have brought you to this moment so you can leave your heart open to connect with your soulmate.

You’re never too old for love because there is no higher power dolling out love to some people and not others.

Don’t Let Your Old Strategies Block You From Love

A long-lasting, monogamous relationship isn’t instinctual, sex is. Monogamy is a societal construct and a choice that brings many benefits to you personally as well as your community. It’s unfortunate that the skills for making monogamy work aren’t taught in school or within the family unit.

You learned about love in your family of origin, just like you learned to walk and talk. Unless your family dynamic was loving and supportive, you probably didn’t develop the best strategies for your romantic relationships. And even if you had a loving, supportive family won’t guarantee success in love early in life.

Your strategies for giving and receiving love were cobbled together from experiences in your childhood home and the meaning you assigned to those events. Then they were solidified through your early experiences with dating.

Plus, you’ve bought into the myth of Love By Accident from the moment you popped out of the womb. The notion that you’ll just magically meet the love of your life one day and know how to make love last is wreaking havoc on your love life.

Recognizing that you are the common denominator in all of your relationships allows you to get in the driver’s seat of your love life. Rather than going along with your old strategies you can make new choices and evaluate a match by cultivating discernment.

Don’t let the past determine your outcome or deter you from your desired goal of lasting love. Just because you didn’t learn great strategies for creating love doesn’t mean you can’t learn new ones. You’re never too old to update your selection process and choose an ideal match for long-lasting love.

Change Your Strategies For Love

Take a new approach to dating by looking for reasons to say, “Yes,” to a first meet, instead of rejecting every person who doesn’t meet your stringent requirements. Commit to Slow Love™ by taking your time before going exclusive. Don’t invest your heart too soon.

Utilize the dating process to practice new strategies and skills, because this is where you have nothing to lose! You can’t say or do the wrong thing with the right person. We aren’t together after all these years because everything went right — many, many things went wrong. We figured them out together, and that’s how it will be with you and your beloved.

Communicate authentically and make requests instead of judging your date’s behavior. Lasting love doesn’t come with mind-reading powers. Focus on “I” language and avoid “You” language and blaming when you are having a conflict with your date.

Set clear boundaries through the dating process so you can repel anyone who wants to control and manipulate you. They’ll literally deselect themselves because they’ll see that you aren’t the kind of person they can exert power over.

Notice if you’re projecting your own fears and insecurities onto a date, or making up a story about them. Keep your heart open and stay curious about their motivations.

These are just a few of the new strategies you can adopt to change your negative patterns. You’re never too old for love, because love doesn’t have an expiration date. Begin anew by making an effort to examine your limiting beliefs, learn from your past experiences, and develop new strategies for lasting love.

Want our support to put to rest the idea that you’re too old for love? Join us for a complimentary Soulmate Strategy Session. During this call, we’ll help you create an action plan for the lasting love you desire and deserve no matter your age, or where you live.