5 Powerful Lessons You Need To Learn While You’re Single

Not a lot of people understand how important being single is.

I’ve been dating my boyfriend for three years now, but I can confidently say that being single was one of the best seasons of my life. It led me to the relationship I’m in now, and if it weren’t for the lessons I learned throughout that season, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

With that being said, here are a few lessons that have shaped and molded me into who I am today, and hopefully, they inspire you to look at your single life from a new perspective.

You’re the only one who can heal yourself.

True healing can’t be done for you by somebody else.

Whether you’ve experienced pain from a partner, a parent, or even a friend, adding another human into the mix and hoping they somehow fix the broken parts of you is selfish. Not only that, but it’s better and more empowering if you learn how to heal on your own.

If there’s one common mistake I could identify in my past relationships, it was that I constantly looked for someone to heal the broken parts of me.

I wanted my partners to fix my childhood, heal me from the pain I experienced from not having a dad around, heal the cracks in my heart from previous relationships. When they couldn’t do it, I felt disappointed.

I set massive expectations for people, and when they couldn’t meet them, it made me resent them.

We all have some sort of baggage, and while the right person can make you feel more comfortable about letting your walls down, you can’t expect them to do it for you. You have to take your life into your own hands, face your pain head-on and deal with it.

In the end, you’ll come out feeling so much better about yourself. You’ll know that you went through some hard times, but you also made it out of those hard times all on your own.

You don’t need another person in order to be whole.

Expecting someone else to make you whole insinuates you’re not whole on your own.

It’s so important to learn this lesson prior to getting into a relationship. You don’t need another person to be complete; you don’t need another person in order to work on becoming the best possible version of yourself.

You need to learn to stand on your own two feet in this world because if you choose to enter a relationship with the mindset of, “this person completes me,” and something happens, and they leave, where does that leave you?

You have to recognize what you’re missing and then work towards filling that need yourself.

“Although there are romantic stories about finding your other half, we need to be complete human beings before we go into a relationship. No one else can complete us. When we show up for ourselves, we can truly show up for our partners. When we are in relationships out of desire, not need, that’s where the magic happens.” — Dr. Michelle Arnold.

Your goal when looking for love should never be to find someone who completes you, your goal should be to be with someone who complements you and adds to your life, and yet if they weren’t there, you would still be just fine on your own.

It’s better to be alone than be with someone who makes you feel lonely.

Many people are afraid of being alone, and their fears cause them to settle for partners that make them feel lonely either way. What’s the point?

Wouldn’t you rather be alone in your own company than in the company of someone who doesn’t make you feel anything?

At least when you’re alone, you have full control of the remote and what to eat for dinner. You don’t have to cater to someone else and their needs.

But aside from that, being alone gives you the opportunity to learn who you are and what you want out of life.

If you’re single right now, utilize this season in your life to your advantage. Put all of your energy and focus entirely on yourself. Get comfortable with who you are, and if you can’t, figure out why.

“You have to be alone to develop all the idiosyncrasies that make a person interesting.” — Andy Warhol.

I remember locking myself in my bedroom after a breakup and crying. I wasn’t crying for him, though; I was crying for myself. I wondered who was going to go to coffee shops with me and who I would go to dinner with. I didn’t care that he was gone because I already knew he wasn’t the right person for me. He was just someone to do things with when I felt lonely.

That’s when I realized I knew I had to get comfortable with being alone. I had to get comfortable with being in my own sweet solitude and learn to appreciate my own company.

Your worth is so much more than you realize.

Before my dating hiatus, I always relied on my partner to make me happy or to make me feel good about myself.

I loved the attention, the compliments, and my drive for taking care of myself and exercising was so I could continue getting attention. I tried to come across as confident and collected, yet behind closed doors, I was the most insecure mess you’d ever meet.

I hated my appearance, wished I were paper-thin and wished my hair was blonde. I meticulously counted the number of calories I consumed, and a bite of chocolate resulted in 3-mile runs.

I shamed myself for not looking a certain way or thinking the same way as others, and while on the outside, my self-esteem was always elevated, in reality, it was non-existent.

Being single taught me to appreciate myself and understand my worth. I learned what “self-love” truly meant and why it was crucial to my existence.

Your worth is so much more than you realize, but you won’t realize any of it until you learn to truly love yourself.

In the end, it’ll make finding the right person easier because instead of settling for whoever walks into your life, you hold yourself to higher standards. You’re aware of the value that you hold and what you bring to the table.

You don’t settle for less than what you deserve when you know your true worth.

You’re the main character of your life.

When you watch a movie or a book with a great protagonist, you’ll notice they’re the ones who make the most progress in their lives. They make mistakes, learn, fail, try again, and ultimately undergo significant character development.

When you review the storyline, you see how they grow as a person. Instead of being reactive and passive, great protagonists are proactive in their lives.

Being the main character of your life doesn’t mean you’re perfect and you’ve got everything together. Instead, it means that you are willing to try, fail, learn, and evolve as a person.

Being single taught me how to be the main character of my story. Often times in relationships, we let our partner become the main character of our lives, and we forget all about ourselves.

Consider the relationships you’ve been in. Were you the main character in them? Or was it them?

Were you focused on yourself and improving as an individual, or did you put yourself on the back burner because you were caught up in your partner?

Use this season of your life to focus wholeheartedly on yourself. Focus on learning more about yourself, what makes you happy, how you can improve yourself and your overall life. Partners will come and go, but the relationship you have with yourself is there to stay forever.

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Previously Published on medium

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