Finding love isn’t just luck or timing.

It comes down to two learnable skills. Episode 269 of The Feminist Dating Show breaks both of them down so you can start practicing today.

Inside this episode:

✨ The reason going on more dates won’t get you closer to the right person. Dating is not a numbers game. It’s an act of self-trust.

✨ Proximity to aligned opportunity: why most people are either paralyzed by fear or doing dating busy work, and what to do instead.

✨ Courageous behavior in the face of opportunity: shooting your shot, blessing and releasing fast, asking for what you want on a first date. That’s not too much. That’s main character energy.

✨ Women who self-silence during conflict are four times more likely to die prematurely. These two skills aren’t just how you find love. They’re how you stop silencing yourself once you’re in it.

Work with Lily:

Read Lily’s book: Thank You, More Please

Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/@datebrazen

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Follow on Instagram: instagram.com/datebrazen

Explore programs + resources: datebrazen.com

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Show transcript:

Lily @ Date Brazen (00:00)
Attracting love and thriving in the right relationship is not about luck and it’s not about timing. It is about two things that I’m gonna talk about in this episode. It’s about proximity to opportunity and courageous behavior in the face of that opportunity. This is the Feminist Dating Show. Let’s get into it.

So inevitably when I post like hope core content on my TikTok or Instagram, I get comments about like, no, but it’s really hopeless. You don’t get it. Here’s why. And I totally empathize with that. I think that ⁓ if you feel hopeless, it is very difficult to build hope when you’re in a hopeless place and ⁓ toxic positivity doesn’t work. And so a lot of the like advice online can feel really hollow if you’re struggling with hopelessness.

It also can be ⁓ really fucking frustrating when all of your friends seemingly easily fell into a relationship and you are still single. In that situation, circumstance, your brain might do things like say, yeah, but it’s just never gonna happen for me. Yeah, it’s just never gonna work for me. Maybe I’m somehow too undesirable or unqualified or too much or not enough, right? Your brain is gonna come up with some really gnarly survival stories to make sense of.

Why did my friend find love and I haven’t? I remember this so well, feeling like a late bloomer when all of my friends were cobbled around me and I wasn’t. And I just was like, what the fuck is wrong with me? That they’ve all found love and I haven’t. And when I was in that place, there was very little that anybody could tell me to convince me of the opposite, that it wasn’t just about luck and timing.

And now, now about 10 years later, I can look back and see the tools that I implemented that I now teach in main character dating. I can see the practices that I put in place to be the main character in my love life, the way that I could heal my you’re too much story by practicing self-compassion. Like all of that shit allowed me to do two things in order to find the right relationship and to exist in the right relationship.

The skills are the same for finding the right relationship and being in the right relationship, thriving in it. It’s proximity to opportunity and courageous behavior in the face of that opportunity. those things speed up your timeline. They speed up your trajectory toward the right relationship. And even if you haven’t ever been in a relationship before, or you haven’t been in the right one, these two things, these two skill sets will mean that you make the right relationship inevitable. And not only that,

You make thriving in the right relationship inevitable because of the courageous behavior in the face of opportunity.

So this work that we’re talking about in this podcast, it’s not just about finding love. It’s about thriving in the right relationship. Because when you say to me like, Lily, all my friends found love without doing this. I’m like, yeah, but are they happy in their relationship? Yeah, but do they know how to trust themselves? Yeah, but do they know how to not self-silence? Yeah, but do they know how to have courage in the face of conflict or setting a boundary or owning what they want, even when they find their person? Most people need help with this. This is life work that we’re doing together. It’s not just like,

stuff that single people need to do to find love. No, no, no, no, no. This is a skill set that will serve you not only in attracting, but being in the best relationship of your life. And I know that for certain for myself, now being in this marriage with Chris for almost three years, being together for eight, going on nine years together. Like this shit works. For my clients who…

thought that finding love was impossible because they were in a terrible relationship before or they had never been in a relationship and now they find themselves in the best relationship of their lives was someone that co-creates with them. They say to me like, my God, these skills of essence-based preferences and ⁓ bold boundaries and qualifying, disqualifying questions not only helped me attract, but it helped me like exist in the best relationship of my life. So I want to get into like,

What are each of these skills and how can you start practicing them today? Number one,

proximity to opportunity. This means putting yourself out there in an aligned way, right? Proximity to opportunity, when you’re not doing that, it might look like not trying to date at all because of fear, fear of rejection, fear of failure, whatever, right? Maybe you want to find the right relationship, but you’re paralyzed with fear about dating after years of false starts or rejection or what have you. Maybe you’re not putting yourself in the way of opportunity because of that fear.

Maybe you don’t have proximity to opportunity because you’re doing a bunch of dating busy work. This is like over-functioning and going on all the dates, even if you’re not curious at all. Going on a bunch of dates doesn’t bring you closer to finding the right relationship. Otherwise, your friend who’d been on a jillion first dates in a month would have found the right relationship already, or you would have found the right relationship already if you were gonna find it with all those dates, right? Dating, to me, is not a numbers game. It’s an act of courage, self-trust.

⁓ It is choosing the right people to go on dates with, using your essence-based preferences to ensure that you’re using your time wisely and so that you’re connecting with the right kind of people for you. So proximity to opportunity really is like proximity to aligned opportunity. Are you putting yourself out there in a purposeful way that is getting you in the way of opportunity? I.e. are you doing IRL dating?

by going and joy building, making new friends, shooting your shot 100 % of the time. Are you getting on a dating app with intention, with a boundary plan, with a profile that sings with your essence-based preferences? Are you getting on a dating app and asking for what you want from the start of a conversation instead of having like a pen pal, like how was your weekend kind of conversation?

What is your proximity to aligned opportunity with IRL dating and online dating? This is where most people stop right? This is where most people say, okay, I’m putting myself out there. I’m doing the dating apps. I’m going to an event. I’m going to a speed dating event. Great. Great. Great. I love that.

That’s step one. Step two to finding and thriving in the best relationship of your life is courageous behavior in the face of

That is something that a lot of people struggle with because of fear, because of fear of rejection, fear of failure.

Like when they’ve been asked out, they’ll throw their phone across the room that’s really nerve wracking. Their nervous system goes into fight, flight, freeze, fawn mode,

Another thing that people might struggle with is shooting their shot. Maybe you’re having the thought that like, if I shoot my shot, it’ll be too aggressive and they won’t like that they need to make the first move and like, that’s bullshit, right? I think that’s fear talking of like the fear of experiencing rejection or the fear of experiencing, ⁓ you know, a no. That’s scary.

And shooting your shot 100 % of the time increases your proximity to opportunity and also it means courageous behavior in the face of that opportunity. Shooting your shot gets you closer to that which you want. It doesn’t mean that the right person won’t shoot their shot first to you, but you’re not in control of that. You are in control of your forward momentum. Courageous behavior in the face of opportunity also looks like.

blessing and releasing the wrong people for you. It looks like recognizing when someone’s not meeting the mark, not co-creating, not making you feel the way you want to feel and blessing and releasing them, Courageous behavior in the face of opportunity means that you don’t let scarcity drive your car. You don’t let anxiety or avoidance drive your car. You’re letting courageous behavior drive your car. That’s main character energy. That is, I want something that’s not here yet, so let’s fucking go. That is,

I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I’m gonna have my back no matter what. That is, this is just the beginning. That is, circumstances have changed and so have I. So let’s go. Now, proximity to opportunity, aligned opportunity, and courageous behavior in the face of opportunity can be learned. They are learnable skills that both make the right relationship inevitable and make it so that you will thrive in the right relationship. Why? Proximity to opportunity requires you

to know what you want and to ask for it in a way with how you show up for what you want, You’re not willing for just anything, you’re willing to.

be available for the right thing. And so how does that person behave? How does that version of you behave? What kind of proximity to opportunity does that person put themselves in the way of? How do they limit their access to the wrong people for them? instead of just hustling, For just dating busy work to try to prove that you’re closer to the right relationship.

Ultimately, proximity to opportunity is about self-trust. It’s about trusting yourself to know what you want, trusting yourself to show up for it, getting in the way of aligned opportunity to get that what you want. Self-trust is necessary. That level of self-trust that you’ll build by building proximity to aligned opportunity is the self-trust that will also buoy you and bolster you as you build the right relationship.

Self-trust is a key skill in building the right relationship. When you meet the right person for you or a person for you and you’re determining whether or not they’re right for you, self-doubt can be extremely loud. Old patterns of self-doubt, old patterns of self-blame, old patterns of freaking out can be really loud. I know this from firsthand experience. It’ll just happen because you’re human. But building the skill set of self-trust as you put yourself in the way of a lined opportunity,

will allow you to have that practice in your pocket as you build the right new relationship. Self-trust will mean that you feel emotionally safer to receive that which you want.

and then courageous behavior in the face of opportunity. What does that look like in the right relationship? It looks like not silencing yourself. So many people, women and people, socialized as women especially, have been taught to silence themselves, silence what they want, and it starts in your dating life. It starts in how you show up for what you want in your dating life and everywhere around it. But like, this shit is deeper than just the surface. It’s not just about dating, it’s about being in the right relationship. Courageous behavior in the face of…

Opportunity is about not silencing yourself and instead saying the thing, doing the thing, asking for the thing.

there’s a study referenced in this Time Magazine article called Self-Silencing is Making Women Sick. And one of the studies that cited found that women who self-silence during.

fights with their spouse were four times more likely to die prematurely than those who didn’t. self-silencing is a very real thing that will take years off of your life, literally, if you do not learn the practice of courageous behavior in the face of opportunity, which is something that like we’re doing here on this podcast, right?

courageous behavior in the face of opportunity, shooting your shot, asking for what you want, setting a boundary. saying to someone, what are you hoping to find in your dating life? Instead of waiting months and then finding out either that they want a relationship or not and just wondering and torturing yourself about wondering.

It means owning what you want. If you want consistent communication, if you want co-creation on dates, right? Like let’s level up your standards want you to give yourself permission to own those standards and to ask for them to be met in your life.

Courageous behavior in the face of opportunity means leveling up your expectation of people in your life to co-create, to be enthusiastic about the time they spend with you. You are not a burden to the people who love you and want to be a part of your life. You are not too much or not enough to the people who want to be a part of your life and who are worthy of being a part of your life. So building proximity to aligned opportunity and courageous behavior in the face of that opportunity.

It is going to build momentum not only toward the right relationship, but it’s going to allow you to thrive in that relationship, which is life work and life skills that a lot of people don’t have and build later.

So you just see those two things. It’s not just about luck. It’s not just about timing. It is proximity to aligned opportunity and courageous behavior in the face of that opportunity. And that’s why I’m so excited to be doing this podcast. That’s why I love running my program, Main Character Dating, which is opening in June for its next enrollment cycle. Because when you have these two things, again, you make not only the right relationship inevitable, you make thriving in the right relationship inevitable. You’ve got this and I’ve got your back.

Talk to you next week.