Many times people seek from a relationship what they lack in themselves. People want someone who will compliment them and make them feel pretty when they don’t see it in themselves. Someone who will give them attention and provide entertainment. Someone who will give validation and make them feel worthy. When you fall into this trap of always requiring a significant other to bring you happiness, you are never really happy.

When you fail to truly love yourself and see your worth, you are bound to fall for someone who is underserving of you. How you love yourself will show other people how you deserve to be loved. When you are constantly putting yourself down and never see anything good in your reflection, you teach other people to notice these flaws that you yourself put so much emphasis on.

The poet, Rupi Kaur, said, “you must want to spend the rest of your life with yourself first.” When you consider these words, they speak a lot of truth. Many people consider the goal of finding their perfect soul mate whom they can spend the rest of their life with to be one of the most important parts of life. Most of the time, this decision isn’t entered into lightly and people think about if they could put up with this person they found for the rest of their life. It’s interesting to consider the notion of wanting to spend the rest of your life with yourself. You probably don’t ever think about that because it isn’t like you have a say in the matter, but it is important for you to like who you are as a person if you ever want to truly be happy.

Don’t search for someone to make you complete. Find fulfillment in yourself. If you are always expecting your significant other to be your only source of happiness, then you will constantly be disappointed. After all, our significant others are only human. He or she is going to mess up and despite how much we would like to control that person and make him or her act exactly as we wish, he or she won’t.

Fall in love with yourself. Spend time alone doing the things you love. Even with the smallest of accomplishments take time to celebrate yourself and all of your hard work. Don’t put yourself down so much, you’re still learning and growing and it’s okay to mess up and fall down every now and then as long as you keep picking yourself up and moving forward. When you can see the good qualities in yourself and be not only content, but happy with who you are as a person, then you will be ready to find someone who only furthers that happiness you already have.