Some people I know love Valentine’s Day. Everyone else? Not so much! Why? Because commercials are filled with fairytales, leaving you wishing for what you see on screen.
You not only need a partner—you need the perfect partner. You know the one: the good-looking person who has a job with a killer salary and fascinating friends you can showcase on social media. Easy—right?
Well, not so much. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up on a happy ending.
I heard about a lady who fell for the fairytale. She thought she found Prince Charming in her twenties. However, there was a problem and it was a big one: He wasn’t in a hurry to leave his wife. Their relationship fell into a devastating pattern of, “Come here, go away.”
She had a single-minded belief everything would come together, even as her self-esteem slid to an all-time low. She admitted, “The more he rejected me, the more I wanted him. I felt depleted, powerless. At the end, I was down on the floor on my knees groveling and pleading with him.”
In the grip of depression, she considered suicide, then changed her mind. She recalled: “I just needed approval so much. I needed everyone to like me, because I didn’t like myself much. So, I’d end up with these cruel, self-absorbed guys who’d tell me how selfish I was, and I’d say, ‘Oh, thank you, you’re so right’, and be grateful to them. Because I had no sense that I deserved anything else.”
Who told that painful story? Oprah Winfrey.
We’ve all believed some version of the script, “A relationship will make everything ok.” But thinking you’re only loveable when someone voices their approval can put you in some pretty funny partnerships! That outlook is the opposite of Everyday Love, our February topic. But you can shift that mindset by drawing on healthy self-confidence.
Life changed for Oprah when she accepted that love was an indestructible part of her core—it didn’t come and go when she had a partner or when a romantic relationship was at its peak. In the end, the story that her good was tied to someone else wasn’t a fairytale worth believing in.
You can learn from Oprah’s heartbreak. Create your own happy ending by practicing Way #2 in our series: Look past the fairytale. Here are three ways to use healthy self-confidence to increase your personal power in relationships:
Don’t let a glossy ad campaign become the boss of feeling loveable. Use soft skills to go from powerless to powered up!