It’s easy to fall into the trap of having a negative attitude about love and dating. Whether you’re browsing social media or commiserating with your friends, dating horror stories seem to be everywhere. What if your attitude about dating was making the problem worse? With the right approach you can develop a positive mental attitude about love and dating and increase your chance of finding an ideal match for love to last.

Your thoughts affect your feelings; they can either motivate you to continue moving toward your goal or drain you of hope and encouragement. Indulging in a negative attitude amplifies your negative experiences, while focusing on a positive mental attitude increases your chance for success.

If you struggle with a negative attitude about your love life there are ways to shift into a positive mental attitude. Here are real-world practical ways to shift your pessimistic outlook into a positive one and turn your love life around overnight.

How A Negative Attitude Blocks You From Finding True Love (And How Switching To A Positive Mental Attitude Changes Everything)

1. A Negative Attitude Colors The Way You See The World

Whether you believe dating apps are full of scammers, or everyone lies on their profile, or they’re only looking for a hookup, your beliefs of how difficult dating is causes you to feel worse when you have a negative experience.

Conversely, if you believe that most people on dating apps are kind people looking for a serious relationship, or that love is easy to find, you’ll have a more positive journey and feel more resilient and capable of overcoming negative experiences.

The world appears to you as you believe it to be. It’s the overwhelming societal fantasy that finding a life partner should take no effort that’s setting you up for disappointment. Ultimately, what you believe is true is true for you.

Your beliefs determine your experience of the world around you. Sadly, most people believe the opposite — they think it’s their beliefs that are shaped by the world.

Your mind is wired to find evidence of your beliefs out in the world, and to reject evidence that contradicts your beliefs.

Clumping things together in this way helps you survive in a complex world. If you had to evaluate all new information from a clean slate (a completely unbiased mindset) then you wouldn’t be able to quickly make decisions and act on the evidence in front of you.

Having a negative attitude about love and relationships causes you to filter for evidence that confirms your beliefs. There are plenty of relationship-ready people looking for love on dating apps (in fact it’s the most common way couples meet). Sadly, it’s your negative beliefs about dating that block you from seeing them.

Developing A Positive Mental Attitude Highlights Positive Experiences

Start small; don’t try to change your attitude about everything all at once. Pick one limiting belief about love and question it. Is it really true or are your negative experiences coloring your beliefs?

When you examine your belief system and poke holes in it, you open the door to having new experiences that contradict the story that finding love is hard.

Look at your past experiences to discover what’s beneath your negative attitude. Is it protection against heartbreak? Is there unresolved grief from a past relationship? Or are you holding on to limiting beliefs about love from your childhood?

Through introspection, you can determine which beliefs serve you to take actions to create your life goals, and which ones are keeping you from the life you dream about.

2. A Negative Attitude Directly Affects The Actions You Take

Your behavior is driven by your thoughts and your feelings. There is a system for how this works. It’s called the Think, Feel, Do Cycle.

First, you have a thought. This thought triggers an emotion. The emotion you feel affects the actions you take or whether you take an action.

When your thoughts are generally negative, they trigger negative emotions. Your negative attitude causes you to take fewer risks, stick to your familiar routines, and reject new opportunities. All of this leads you to have fewer opportunities to meet new people, make new connections, and have new experiences.

Your negative attitude is keeping you stuck, and your feeling stuck is contributing to your negative attitude. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that will take some willpower for you to break.

This never-ending cycle requires you to make an effort to change. You won’t magically wake up one day with a positive mental attitude about love and dating. You’ll have to take new actions to feel better. And that may require you to pay more attention to your negative thoughts.

Changing Your Habitual Thoughts Helps Develop A Positive Mental Attitude

Look for reasons to stay positive. Practice affirmations. Contradict your negative thought patterns by looking for evidence of the opposite being true. Notice love in all its many forms all around you.

A positive mental attitude starts with intention and effort but quickly transforms into a new mental habit the more you practice. Thinking positively triggers you to feel better about yourself and your prospects, which motivates you to take action toward your goals.

You have more control over your thoughts than you know. And when you take control of your thoughts you start to feel better, which has an effect throughout the Think, Feel, Do Cycle.

3. A Negative Attitude Makes You More Critical And Judgmental

One of the more corrosive effects of a negative attitude is that it causes you to be more critical and judgmental of the world around you. And judgment is the biggest block to love.

Judgment makes it difficult for any potential date to live up to your unrealistic expectations. It becomes a habit to find fault with those around you and causes you to feel disconnected from other people. This feeds your cynicism about dating in the modern world.

At its root all judgment is self-judgment. And when you are judgmental you are more inclined to project that judgment onto others.

A Positive Mental Attitude Creates Feelings Of Connection

Instead, create a connection with your dates by focusing on their positive qualities. This doesn’t mean that you excuse bad behavior. It does mean that you don’t sweat the small stuff. Go on some dates and just enjoy getting to know another human being with zero expectation of anything that may come after.

Breaking a pattern of judgment is just like breaking any habit – it requires a commitment and a strategy. First off it is important that you focus on progress, not perfection.

Start the day with a stretchy bracelet on one wrist and every time you catch yourself being negative or judgmental move the bracelet to the other wrist. Your goal is to not move the bracelet for 30 days straight.

You’ll be surprised at how your negative inner voice has become embedded in every part of your life. Within a couple of weeks of moving your bracelet back and forth, you’ll see improvement in all your relationships.

Part of developing a positive mental attitude is being kind, compassionate, and loving with yourself through the process. Don’t focus on perfection; instead focus on taking small steps toward your goal.

4. A Negative Attitude Causes You To Say No To New Opportunities

When you have a negative attitude you’re more likely to look for reasons to say no. No, to a possible date. No, to giving someone a second chance. No, to an adventure.

Love requires that you risk. It’s a risk to meet someone new. It’s an even bigger risk to fall in love with someone.

The myth of accidental love leaves you wishing that your ideal partner sees through all your negativity and loves you despite it. It requires you to hope and wish that someone will counteract your negativity and bring happiness into your life.

It’s as if you’ve locked yourself into a fairytale tower expecting that the right person will find their way up there to rescue you and make your life better.

Ultimately, you are the only person responsible for your happiness. Only you can change your negative attitude.

A Positive Mental Attitude Develops When You Say Yes

It starts by saying yes instead of no. Say yes to a date with someone new. Say yes to go to that party where you won’t know anyone. Say yes to a new adventure.

Take charge of your attitude by saying yes to risk your heart. You’ll find that your path to love becomes clearer and your connection to others a lot stronger.

If you’ve only had bad experiences with dating apps, you’ll be resistant to using them. A dating app is just a tool and if you don’t use the tool properly, you can’t blame the tool. Ultimately, a dating app is a tool to meet new people.

Instead of looking for your soulmate in a profile or getting caught up in endless text communication with a stranger, use dating apps to meet as many people as you can in real life. The more dates you have the clearer you become on what you’re looking for.

What if you knew that your ideal partner was looking for you as intently as you were looking for them? How would you behave differently if you new your person was out there and it was just a matter of time before you met?

With this positive mental attitude each rejection gets you closer to your person, not farther away. You approach dating with more confidence and curiosity instead of fear and judgment.

5. A Negative Attitude Repels Love

Negative people are not very fun to be around. They tend to bring the energy and mood down for everyone else. Is your negative attitude becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy?

It may feel comforting to commiserate with your friends about how frustrating online dating is. Many people bond on a first date by sharing their dating horror stories.

Is this the kind of relationship you desire? Where you bond over judgment, criticism, and negativity? Do you want to stop being the dark cloud that rains on everyone else’s happiness?

A Positive Mental Attitude Attracts Love To You

If you’re craving lasting love with someone who loves you for who you really are, you have to show up as who you really are. You learned your negative attitude. It’s not your true nature.

Start by being curious about the people you meet. Curiosity is very attractive.

Practice being curious with strangers you meet at the grocery store. Or be curious about people in the line at your coffee shop. Be curious about that stranger you’re meeting for the first time.

Your curiosity becomes a magnet to draw new people to you. Remember, every person you meet knows people you have not met yet. You never know where the introduction to your beloved will come from.

Taking time to examine your negative attitudes and making a daily effort to shift to a more positive attitude will transform your experience exponentially. You don’t have to change everything all at once. Attempting to will only lead to frustration and failure. Instead, pick one item from your list and focus on it for a few weeks. You’ll be surprised at how quickly everything in your life will get better.

If you recognize that your negative attitude is blocking you from love and want to switch to a positive mental attitude, Preorder our debut book: GETTING IT RIGHT THIS TIME: Break Free from Your Hidden Blocks to Lasting Love. Order the hardcover edition, email us the receipt to be enrolled in our virtual Book Club, three LIVE masterclasses in the New Year for no additional cost (this offer expires December 22, 2024). We’ll discuss the concepts presented in the book and answer all your questions.