Hilary Silver is a clinical psychotherapist who operated a busy and successful private practice for 14 years. In 2017, she discovered coaching and decided to close her practice and launch an online coaching, wellness and empowerment company for women.
Hilary Silver now spends her time mentoring women which gives her the ability to witness their life changing transformations.
In this article, Hilary Silver reviews some of her latest thoughts on love and why she believes women should not be taking a break from dating.
Tell us about your “Ready for Love” group
The Ready for Love group is for high-achieving women who are ready to find the love of their lives. These women are ready to stop messing around, being single, dating, and not moving towards having a meaningful relationship.
I will be talking about navigating dating with confidence and certainty, and getting into relationships with men who are at your level so that you can be as confident and successful in your love life as you are in all the other areas of your life.
Why do so many successful women take “breaks” from dating?
Women take breaks from dating for a variety of reasons. Number one, it becomes exhausting. Dating is time-consuming and they get tired of checking their phone all the time, all the swiping, the managing, and the incoming messages. It becomes a distraction from your life.
When you hear a little ding on your phone, you’re like, “Ooh, who likes me?,” or you put your profile out and you’re constantly checking to see if you got any bites, and that is hugely distracting.
If you’re getting beyond that stage and you’re getting into these mini relationships that last anywhere from a month to three months, that can be exhausting too. You’ll start connecting with somebody, putting all this effort in, really sharing yourself and getting to know someone. Your small talk has turned into real conversation and maybe you’ve allowed yourself to feel something. You think there’s real potential there and then it fizzles or doesn’t work out and there’s more disappointment, heartache and let down. After that, many women say, “I just can’t do it, not one more time.”
Those are all good reasons to feel like you need to take a break and catch your breath.
You’re an advocate for women to continue dating even when they’re discouraged. Why is that?
The longer you sit on the sidelines, the harder it is to get back out there. There are good reasons to take a break, but what happens is you sink further and further into the self-doubt, the second-guessing, the “I don’t have what it takes” mentality. You lose your confidence, you lose your mojo, and you lose your sense of worthiness. You start thinking, “Maybe this is the way it is for me.”
Maybe your heart and your mind are still sitting out, but you’re actually out there dating and going through the motions. But if you really don’t want to be there, or your heart’s not in it, and you’re doing it with this baggage attached to you, like, “This isn’t going to work anyway,” then it’s not going to work.
You’re showing up on the field, not believing that you can win. How is that going to affect your result? Are you ever going to win a game if you don’t believe that you can?
The longer you sit on the bench, the more you watch everyone else get scooped up and win, the more you feel like you lose, the harder it is to get back out there, and time just passes you by. Before you know it, a year has gone by, two years have gone by, 10 years of your life have gone by, and now, you identify yourself as this single woman who struggles in love.
So how can a woman approach dating in a way that will lead to a meaningful relationship?
Who you were when you were dating a year ago, four years ago, or even 10 years ago is still the same you who’s trying to date now. While you’ve been sitting out, nothing about how you date has changed. You’re still dating the same way that you dated when it wasn’t working for you before.
You may be hugely successful in your business, yet, when you’re dating, you show up full of self-doubt, uncertainty, and insecurities. When you’re in this lack mode, you’re in scarcity.
When you’re in scarcity mode, you settle.
When you’re in scarcity mode, you compromise.
When you’re in scarcity mode, you take what you can get, instead of getting what you want. When you’re in scarcity mode, you make excuses for men and overlook the red flags.
If you’re taking a break from dating and you’re not doing anything to evolve, grow, or change the way that you’re dating, nothing’s going to change. The only thing that will have happened is that you’re older and time has passed you by.
You’ll be older, out of practice, and still showing up the same way.
Are you saying that these women need to change in order to find love?
Not at all! But you should be asking yourself, “What am I doing to change myself in a good way?” I don’t want you to be different, I want you to be you. But you need to think about what it is that you’re doing
that’s not working? How can you change that so that you are approaching love, men and dating with the same confidence and certainty that you have at work. You already have the awareness tools and skills to navigate the new playing field with ease and grace.
We’ve all heard the famous Einstein quote that says, “Doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results is insanity.” He calls it the definition of insanity, but to me, that’s the definition of denial.
Doing the same thing again and again, while expecting something to be different is denial. I am here to rip you out of your denial so you don’t fool yourself anymore and think that something’s going to be different just because you’re ready to start dating again. It’s not. Nothing out there has changed. Men are the same they’ve always been, and dating is pretty much the same as it’s always been. It’s all the same. Everything out there is the same.
Online dating has been around for 25 years or more, so if nothing out there is going to change, who has to be the one to change in a good way? What I’m asking you to change is not your heart, not that you’re lovable, smart, nurturing, or giving, none of those things.
What we want is for you to challenge your belief system, the one that says you don’t have what it takes or that you’re not good enough, or that you’re too much. It’s either I’m not enough or I’m too much, right? We want you to change so that you aren’t showing up fearful of getting hurt, rejected, abandoned, let down, and betrayed. We want you to show up, being able to trust men and to trust yourself.
Those are the ways that I want you to change. That’s all, and it doesn’t hurt to feel like you now know how to communicate better, how to set limits, how to set boundaries, how to ask for what you need, how to excuse yourself from a date when you’re not happy with it and you want to leave.
I don’t want you to change who you are at the core because we love the way you are as you are right now.
Thanks to Hilary Silver for her time and insights!
Published December 18th, 2021