Ready to Find Love? Start with These 5 Shifts

And I hope you're being a little patient with yourself because you deserve it, and, yeah, I'll talk to you soon.

“Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Iron at Purpose. In today's episode, we're going to talk about love, finding the right partner, and how to meet your soulmate.”

But before we get into it, I want to start with an idea that sounds completely devoid of romance. Finding love isn't about chemistry. It's actually just about probability. Now, I know that sounds like I'm about to reduce one of the most beautiful parts of life to statistics, but stay with me. I actually think understanding the role probability plays in love is one of the most hopeful things you can possibly learn. Think about this for a moment. Picture your ideal person. They're kind, emotionally available, funny, thoughtful, and they share the values that matter most to you.

They're aligned with what they want out of life. In fact, maybe they even live right in your own same town. You could be shopping at the same grocery store, driving the same streets or grabbing coffee from cafes only a few blocks apart.

But if your lives never cross paths, none of your potential chemistry ever gets the chance to matter.

“So maybe the question you should be asking isn't when will I meet my person?”

It's actually, is my life creating enough opportunities for the right person to meet me in the first place. Every love story has to have an origin point, but the truth is that origin point usually isn't going to look very romantic at first. Think about the couples you know in your life. More often than not, the way they met was simple and maybe even unremarkable. They went to the same gym, they were co-workers, they both attended the same birthday party. They were in the same wrong club. Maybe they met somewhere ordinary and, most importantly, somewhere that was part of a routine for them.

Because before there was chemistry, there had to be proximity. Before there can be compatibility, there has to be opportunity. And that's why I think dating can feel so confusing for so many people today. We live in a world where it's easier than ever to avoid people, we don't already know. We work from home, we order groceries to our doorstep, we stream our entertainment instead of going out.

We wear headphones on walks, we use self-check out at the grocery store. None of those habits are bad, they make life easier more comfortable and more efficient, but they also significantly reduce the number of new people our lives naturally come into contact with. Maybe, and I think this is true for far more people than we realize, you simply haven't built a life that creates enough opportunities for you and your person's paths to cross. That's not discouraging, it's actually incredibly empowering, because the beautiful thing about understanding probability is that it shifts the conversation away from blaming yourself for not finding your person yet.

Unlike chemistry, compatibility or timing, probability is something you can actually influence.

“So today, I want to go through five psychological concepts that completely change the way you should approach meeting the right person.”

By the end of this episode, I hope you will have totally reframed the way you look at the dating landscape. Look, I know being single can be exhausting, especially if you don't want to be single anymore. That's why I want to put the power back in your hands. Here's a truth I want to start with. You need to understand that deep attraction is often built over time.

One of the biggest myths we've inherited about love is that we'll simply know when we meet the right person. Movies have taught us to expect fireworks. We imagine locking eyes across a crowded room, feeling immediate chemistry, and somehow recognizing our future in the span of a single conversation. It's a beautiful idea, and every now and then it happens. But when psychologists study how attraction actually develops, they often find something much less dramatic.

And I think much more encouraging. There's a concept in psychology called the mere exposure effect. The basic idea is that we're more likely to develop a preference for people, places, and even songs simply because we encounter them repeatedly.

The first time you hear a new song, you might not care much for it. By the tenth time, you're singing along to every word.

The song didn't change, your relationship to it did. The same thing can happen with people. Our brains are constantly making quick judgments about the people we meet. Every new person requires us to process new information. We're figuring out who they are, whether we have anything in common, how they communicate, and what being around them feels like.

They become easier for our brains to understand, and that ease can then be translated into feelings of warmth, trust, and eventually attraction. When you start looking at relationships through that lens, so many love stories suddenly make sense. People fall in love with classmates, co-workers, neighbors, friends or friends, because repeated exposure gives attraction the time and space to grow. This episode of On Purpose is presented by Ultra Running. We all benefit from having a little more space, so do our feet.

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Go to UltraRunning.com/On Purpose and use code Purpose10 for 10% off. That's ALTRayRunning.com/On Purpose. Stay out there. This is one of the biggest ways modern dating has changed. Dating apps have completely shifted this idea of repeated exposure. Many people meet someone online, spend 90 minutes together over dinner, and then immediately ask enormous questions. Did I feel enough chemistry?

Could I see myself marrying this person? Is this potentially my soulmate? We've started expecting one evening to tell us what previous generations often discovered over weeks or months of naturally getting to know someone.

I think that's a tremendous amount of pressure to put on a first date.

After all, your first conversation with someone isn't just revealing who they are. It's revealing who they are while they're nervous, trying to make a good impression, and sitting across from someone who's also evaluating them. That's a very different environment than seeing someone lead a volunteer project, make their friends laugh, comfort someone who's having a difficult day, or joke around with the people around them. Those moments often reveal much more about who someone is than a carefully planned dinner ever could.

Just doesn't mean forcing chemistry when it's not there, it just means being open to letting it grow. Sometimes the person who leaves the biggest impression on your life isn't the one who gave you butterflies in the first five minutes. It's the one who slowly became the person you most looked forward to seeing every day.

“That's why one of the most practical first shifts you can do if you genuinely want to meet your soulmate is surprisingly simple.”

Become a regular somewhere. Join the same running club every Tuesday, volunteer with the same organization each month. Take a pottery course, work from a neighborhood coffee shop once a week instead of your kitchen table. Find places where you'll naturally see the same people over and over again. Stop looking for one magical moment where everything clicks instantly.

Instead, start building a life where meaningful connections have the chance to grow. Because before anyone becomes the love of your life, they might need to just be another person you happen to see over and over again. And this takes me to my second shift for meeting your soulmate. Let the network around you work for you and be honest with them about what you're looking for. Most of us think of dating as something that happens between two individuals.

But sociology tells us something different. Relationships don't just emerge from individuals. They emerge from communities. There's a famous concept in sociology called the strength of weak ties. Introduced by sociologist Mark Granoveter.

The idea is simple. Our closest friends usually know the same people we know. We share similar circles, similar routines, and similar weekend plans. But acquaintances or weak ties, like the coworker you chat with once a week. The person from your yoga class, your old neighbor, your cousin's friend,

and the guy you play pickleball with once a month, those people move through completely different worlds. Those weaker connections are often the bridges to entirely new communities. Researchers originally studied weak ties because they noticed something interesting about careers. People often found their next job not through their best friend, but through someone they barely knew. That acquaintance had access to different information and different opportunities.

And simply having the weak tie was enough to advance the other acquaintances career forward.

“I think the exact same principle applies to relationships.”

The person you end up marrying may not be sitting across from you at a dinner party tonight. But they might be co-workers with the person sitting across from you.

That's one of the reasons community has always mattered so much throughout human history.

People met through neighborhood, religious communities, schools, sports teams, extended families and local organizations.

They were participating in communities where relationships had room to form naturally.

As their network grew, so did the number of lives that intersected with their own. I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons dating feels harder today is because many of us have fewer overlapping communities than previous generations did. We move cities more often. We spend more time online. We see the same people instead of continually meeting new ones.

“That's why I actually think one of the best dating strategies has almost nothing to do with dating.”

It's simply building a deeper social life. Join the recreational soccer league, say yes to the co-workers birthday dinner, go to the friend's housewarming even if you'll only know two people there.

Every new community you become a part of creates dozens, sometimes even hundreds of new potential connections you never could have planned for.

The goal isn't to maximize dates. The goal is to maximize meaningful intersections with people whose lives are different from your own. Dating is often the byproduct of a healthy social ecosystem, not the starting point. And don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-dating apps, apps absolutely can work and tons of wonderful relationships have started there. But apps shouldn't be your entire strategy. If they're the only place you're meeting new people, you've outsourced one of the most human parts of life to a single platform.

The healthiest dating lives usually have multiple pathways for connection. The meeting people through work, hobbies, mutual friends, volunteering, travel, community events, and yes, sometimes through apps as well.

Now let's move on to the third part of this and here's where I want you to get real with yourself.

Your standards may not be the problem, but your filters might be. I hear people say all the time. I just have really high standards.

“And honestly, I hope you do. I hope your standards are incredibly high when it comes to kindness, honesty, emotional maturity, communication, shared values, and the way someone makes you feel about yourself.”

Those aren't things I want you to compromise on. There's some of the strongest predictors of a healthy, lasting relationship. But I wonder if sometimes we started confusing our standards with our preferences, because those aren't the same thing. Standards are about the qualities that actually sustain a relationship. They're about whether someone is trustworthy, emotionally available, respectful, dependable and capable of growing with you over time. Preferences are the picture we've built in our heads about what we think our person is supposed to look like. Maybe they're a certain height. Maybe they have a particular career or hobby. Maybe they have a certain look physically.

None of those preferences are wrong, but they're also not the same as the qualities that actually determine whether two people can build a life together. What's fascinating is that psychology is consistently found we're not nearly as good at predicting who will actually fall in love with as we think we are. Researchers have asked people to describe their ideal partner in great detail. Then later observed who they were genuinely attracted to in real life interactions. Again and again, they found that the list people imagined mattered far less once an actual human being was sitting in front of them. The experience of connection often outweighed the checklist they arrived with.

“I think that's because compatibility isn't something we imagined. It's something we experience.”

You can't know what it feels like to laugh with someone every day from reading a dating profile. You can't predict how safe you'll feel opening up to them, how they'll respond when you're grieving, whether they'll make difficult moments feel lighter or whether you'll genuinely enjoy building an ordinary life together. Those are the things that sustain a relationship and almost none of them can be measured by dating at filters. Sometimes I wonder if it's possible to become so attached to the picture in our minds that we stop even seeing a person sitting across from us. We dismiss someone because they don't match the image we've carried around for years.

Without stopping to ask whether they possess the qualities we've spent our whole lives hoping to find. I also think social media has made this even more difficult. We're constantly exposed to carefully curated relationships alongside endless conversations about your type, green flags, red flags and dating non-negotiables. Over time, it's easy to start believing that finding love is simply about locating the person who checks every box. The healthiest relationships I've seen aren't built because someone perfectly matched another person's imagined checklist.

And then surprised each other in all the ways neither of them expected to. So I don't want you to lower your standards. If anything, I hope you raise them. Raise your standards for kindness, raise your standards for emotional maturity, raise your standards for consistency, honesty, generosity and the ability to repair after conflict.

Because sometimes the greatest barrier to meeting the right person isn't that your standards are too high. It's that your preferences have become too rigid. And those are two very different things. You're not trying to force chemistry. You're not trying to manufacture fate. You're simply refusing to build a life that's so small, predictable and closed off that love never has the chance to find you. So now let's say you do everything we've talked about. You've expanded your social circle. You've utilized your network. You've opened up your preferences and now you've set up a first date with someone.

This is where a lot of people can go wrong. For the fourth shift, I want to talk about what actually happens once you do meet someone.

“Because I think one of the biggest mistakes people make in modern dating has nothing to do with who they're meeting and everything to do with the pressure they're putting on every single first date.”

Because if you're not careful, first dates can quickly turn into FBI interrogation sessions. We set across from someone we've known for forty five minutes and start asking questions that no human being could possibly answer over a baller pastor. Could I spend the rest of my life with this person? Would they be a good parent? Is their job impressive enough? Are they making me laugh enough? Do they make enough money? Are they emotionally intelligent? Are they my soul mate? Before the appetizers have even arrived, we've put this person on trial for the rest of our future lives. If this is you don't get down on yourself. It's a natural instinct. Psychologists have actually found that human beings have something called a need for cognitive closure.

In simple terms, we don't like uncertainty. Our brains would a much rather reach a conclusion than sit in the discomfort of not knowing. That's incredibly useful when we're making quick decisions in everyday life. But I think it becomes a real problem in dating. We become so desperate to figure out whether someone is our person that we forget the entire purpose of our first date is simply to meet them for who they are. Think about how strange that really is. If you met a potential new friend, you probably wouldn't spend dinner wondering whether you'd still be friends in 30 years.

You wouldn't ask yourself from the first day whether you'll retire there. Most meaningful things in our lives unfold gradually. But somehow when it comes to dating, we've convinced ourselves that one dinner should provide enough evidence to make a decision about forever. The irony is that the harder you're trying to evaluate someone, the less you're actually experiencing them. Instead of listening to what they're saying, you're comparing them to the imaginary version of your future partner you've been carrying around in your head.

Instead of laughing together, you're mentally checking boxes. Instead of wondering, who is this person? You're asking, does this person fit my lifestyle? It's very difficult to be genuinely curious about someone while you're simultaneously trying to reach a verdict on them. I actually think that healthy as first dates have a completely different goal.

“They aren't trying to answer whether this person is your soul mate. They're simply trying to answer whether you'd enjoy getting to know them a little more. That's a much smaller question.”

But it's also the only question you're actually equipped to answer after 90 minutes together. Everything else requires time.

Time to see how they handle disappointment, time to watch how they treat other people, time to learn what they like when they're comfortable instead of nervous. If first dates stress you out, then let this concept be freeing. You can already accept that most first dates won't become lifelong relationships. Probability tells us that's never how this was supposed to work. Most people you meet won't be your soul mate. And that's okay. The job was never to be. Their job was simply to be one more person you learned from, laughed with, was simply shared a conversation with.

“So the next time you go on a first date, I'd love to try a different mindset. The first date isn't about finding love. You're just getting dressed up because it feels good to take care of yourself.”

You're picking a place because you genuinely look forward to trying the food then, experience the environment, and you're turning a mundane weeknight into an exciting opportunity for curiosity no matter what the outcome is. Then ask good questions. Listen carefully, tell stories, if you leave thinking, I'd enjoy another conversation with this person, then the evening was a success. You don't need to know whether they're your forever person. You only need to know whether they're worth one more conversation. Now, if you've been following everything we've talked about so far, then I think there's one final shift we have to hit on to tie this all together.

This might be the most important shift of the entire episode because it's the one that determines whether you stay in the game long enough for everything else we've talked about to even matter.

“One of the things psychologists have found is that human beings are constantly trying to create meaning from random events.”

It's one of the ways our brain makes the world feel predictable. We naturally connect experiences together and turn them into stories that help us understand who we are. Most of the time, that's incredibly useful, but when it comes to dating, I think it's one of the biggest reasons so many people lose hope. Think about what happens after a disappointing experience. Maybe someone goes to after three dates. Maybe you meet someone you genuinely like, but they don't feel the same way. Maybe another relationship ends and you're right back where you started. Those moments hurt and they should. But what usually hurts us even more is the story our brain immediately begins writing about what they mean.

Instead of thinking, that wasn't the right person. We start thinking, why does this always happen to me? Instead of we weren't compatible, it becomes maybe I'm too much.

Instead of this relationship wasn't meant to last, it turns into maybe I'm just never going to find anyone. We take one experience with one person and somehow transform it into a prediction about the rest of our lives.

“That's why I think it's so important to separate data from damage. Data's information, damage is identity. If someone tells you they don't think you're compatible, that's data.”

If a relationship ends because you want to different things, that's data. If someone goes to, that's data about their communication style. Their emotional maturity or simply where they are in life. None of those experiences get to decide your worth unless you hand them that power. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan.

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state, coverage options are selected by the customer, availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. I actually think one of the healthiest truths about dating is also one of the hardest to accept. If your goal is to find one extraordinary relationship, then almost everyone else is supposed to be the wrong person.

That's not because you're doing anything wrong, it's because the odds have simply always worked that way. You're not searching for someone who's just good enough.

You're searching for the person whose values, emotional maturity, goals and vision for life align with yours. That's an incredibly high bar, and it should be. Imagine someone handed you a thousand piece puzzle and asked you to find the pieces that fit together. You wouldn't assume the puzzle was broken every time two pieces didn't connect. You'd simply keep looking because that's how puzzles work.

“Dating asks us to do the same. Even though I know it can be emotionally much harder, but we have to remember that every mismatch isn't evidence that lovers becoming less likely.”

Instead, it's evidence that you're getting closer to the relationship that actually fits. I think one of the most dangerous things that can happen after disappointment is that we stop participating. We stop accepting invitations because we assume nothing meaningful will happen. We stop introducing ourselves because rejection feels inevitable. We stop putting ourselves in new environments because we've convinced ourselves the outcome will be the same. When you zoom out, that's really what this entire episode has been about. Not finding ways to control love, but finding ways to stay open to it.

Staying curious instead of demanding certainty, building communities instead of waiting for chance, creating opportunities instead of assuming fate will do all the work. Because here's the truth I hope you leave with today. Probability doesn't promise that your soul mate is waiting around the corner. It doesn't guarantee you'll meet them next week or even next year. What it does promise is something much more empowering. Tomorrow is not predetermined by yesterday. Every new conversation, every community you become part of, every invitation you accept,

and every small decision to keep showing up changes the future available to you. It's not just about a run club or a pottery class. It's about the fact that every routine you repeat.

That's a much bigger idea than dating. That's a philosophy for living.

“Maybe fate doesn't exist separately from your choices. Maybe it works through them.”

Maybe the life you're meant to have is built one ordinary decision at a time. And it's only years later that you realize which decisions were truly changing everything. I also want to say something to anyone listening who's starting to lose hope. I see you. Maybe you've been on dozens of dates. Maybe you've experienced deep heartbreak. Maybe every wedding invitation feels like a reminder that everyone else seems to be moving forward while you're standing still.

“If that's where you are, I hope this episode hasn't left you feeling like you need to do more.”

I hope it's left you feeling that you can finally stop blaming yourself for a process that has always involved uncertainty and has only gotten harder with time.

At the beginning of this episode, I told you that finding love isn't just chemistry. It's probability. I know that sounded cold. I know it sounded like I was about to reduce romance to a numbers game. But I actually think probability serves to remind us that your future isn't fixed. It reminds us that one conversation can change your life. One invitation can introduce you to someone you'll know forever and one ordinary decision can totally alter the entire direction of your story. So don't spend your days wandering whether your soul may exist. Spend your days building a life that's rich with curiosity, community, purpose and openness.

Because in the end, I don't think the goal is to spend your life searching for your soulmate.

“I think the goal is to spend your life so fully engaged with the world around you.”

But when your paths do finally cross, they become an addition to your life, not the beginning of it.