2025 Dating Goals: How to Set and Manifest Your Ideal Love Life
Hello beautiful souls!
Somehow, we made it through 2024. Congratulations to us! The end of a year means a new beginning, so it’s no surprise that we like to craft resolutions for the year ahead. In fact, this practice dates back thousands of years! We picture changes in our career, finances, fitness and health. But how often do we pause to set intentions for our love lives? If you’re ready to revamp your dating life, here are some ways to establish goals that stick, stay on the road to success and get your flirt on.
Turn Inward
In order to set a goal, you first have to figure out your desired outcome. Take some time to reflect on your values, dating history and imagined future. Maybe you’re sick of pursuing emotionally unavailable partners. Maybe you’re still healing from a breakup. Maybe you just want to enjoy going out on dates. Wherever you are in your dating journey, figure out where it is you want to go.
Example: I want to build a healthy, secure relationship.
Example: I want to be myself on dates.
Example: I want to get off the apps and date in the real world.
Get SMART
Armed with your endgame achievement, now it’s time to break it down into smaller steps. Start with the miracle question: If you woke up tomorrow with your ideal dating life, how would you know you had reached that desired outcome? How would you feel? What would be different about your life?
Think about the steps it will take to get to your end goal. Consider things that have worked in the past, barriers that have held you back and potential challenges along the way. Use that insight to create SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
Imagine your goal is healing from a breakup. You’ll know that you’re healed from said breakup when you wake up feeling grounded, optimistic and open-minded. In order to get there, you decide to go to therapy in 2025. Now your resolution has shifted from “Feel more optimistic” to “Take care of my emotional wellbeing by attending therapy every other week for 3 months.” See what I did there? Choose your big goal for the year (ex. Heal from my breakup), break it down (ex. Attend therapy) then break it down again into bite-sized pieces.
Take Stock of the Bigger Picture
We might be talking about your dating life but nothing happens in a vacuum. How are other areas of your life impacting the romance department? Maybe you’re crazed at work, absorbed by a new hobby, dealing with family issues or focusing on saving for a big purchase. Take these things into account when establishing your goals and creating a plan (aka the “achievable” part of SMART goals).
While it’s always best to aim for balance, life happens and your energy for dating will flex and flow. Different dimensions of your life will demand more attention at times, and that’s totally fine. So what’s realistic for right now given the context of the rest of your life?
Hop on the Path
Ok so you’ve done a lot of work and set some bangarang goals that reflect your values and desires. Now it’s time to do the damn thing.
Remember when you broke things down into bite-sized pieces? Here is where those bites come into play. Dream big but start small. Download one dating app today, create your profile tomorrow, initiate 3 conversations the next day. You’ve made a plan and now you’re on the path!
Switch Up Your Mindset
Your goals, plans and actions are looking great but you aren’t feeling great. What the heck?
Check in with your mindset. If your belief system doesn’t align with your goal, you’re going to have a problem. Our brains actively seek out evidence to support our beliefs while sneakily ignoring evidence to the contrary. This is why empowerment is so key to my coaching ethos. When you believe in your strengths, your resilience, your worthiness, you bring those to the table in a way that attracts the outcomes you seek. For example, I felt so confident, cool and accomplished after crocheting my first cardigan that a stranger complimented me as soon as I left the house. It’s the law of attraction, baby.
Start with some realistic affirmations that you can get behind. My body is strong and able. I am loved by my friends. There are good partners in the world.
Be Nice, Be Flexible
Beware of all-or-nothing thinking. Let’s say you consistently go on one date per week but then March rolls around and you miss two weeks of dates. Hear me when I tell you: a misstep is NOT a failure.
Take a moment to reassess your plan, your goal or your timeline. Maybe the plan was too lofty, maybe the goal no longer fits or maybe life just happened.
Be nice to yourself, be flexible and do what’s right for you.
Celebrate You!
All this talk about self-improvement and change discounts the fact that you are already so incredible. Take a moment to celebrate all the things you’re proud of or love about yourself. Think about ways to emphasize what’s already great.
You are not a problem to fix, nor are you incomplete while single. I’ll refer back to my favorite analogy. While hot fudge or a cherry or sprinkles might be added fun, the ice cream underneath is still delicious on its own. You’re the ice cream. Delectable and perfect as is.
Coach Steph’s Resolutions
To close out, I wanted to share some of my own resolutions for 2025 as a way to hold myself accountable. May they inspire new ideas for you and inspire you to share your resolutions in the comments below.
Stop people-pleasing.
Journal check-in once a week about personal and professional boundaries.
Celebrate moments of prioritizing myself by reaching out to one friend.
Meditate 5 minutes per day to stay attuned with my wants and needs.
Have fun on dates.
Reflect on 3 dates that were actually fun. What were the common features?
Brainstorm 2 go-to date ideas/locations where I feel content and engaged.
Affirm prior to first dates: Dates are a great opportunity to build new connections, romantic or otherwise.
Here’s to love, empowerment and joy in 2025. Happy New Year, babes!
