Get ready for your prince(ss)

Do you make excuses for why you’re not in a relationship, as though it’s about somebody or something else?

It’s about you.

If you’re willing to assume responsibility for yourself, you’ll find the love you want. Think of it as taking a promotion. Responsibility is a privilege. The more you take on, the more empowered you are to effect change.

It’s easier to stay on the couch and whine about how you can’t meet somebody, but that gets you the same old same old. Not what you want.

In “Get Over Yourself!” matchmaker Patti Novak says she tells clients what their friends won’t. She’s not afraid to tell them that they talk too much, could use a haircut or should have only one cat instead of 12.

Her advice is somebody’s-got-to-go-there-with-you practical!

“One of the biggest obstacles people have in finding love is not knowing how to behave — what to say and what not to say, how to act and how not to act — when they’re out in public with someone they’ve just met,” says Novak.

Ah, but she also says that love isn’t about having the right shoes or a flat stomach.

Of course it’s not, but there are people out there who would tell you that it is, and give you a quick fix or an easy formula. Don’t get me wrong, there is a formula; it’s just not easy. I give it to you week after week in some form: Know, love, and share your authentic self.

Novak delivers the same truth, and she does it with Dr. Phil’s zing; but somehow you never feel like she’s talking down to you. You get the impression that she really is a friend, just more straightforward than your other friends.

Novak told me that the most valuable thing she could give a client was knowledge of their core … she tries to help people with their self-worth, and sometimes that means helping them to forgive themselves.

“I give ’em hope,” she says.

Getting to the core is the most critical and the toughest of all the work we have to do. It means looking at what we’re afraid falls short of expectations, or even normalcy. It’s the only way to assess where we are, though, in order to get where we want to be.

We don’t hide our true self because there’s something wrong with us; we hide it because we’re afraid there’s something wrong with us. But sometimes the façade we’ve built to win approval is awfully pretty … and we don’t want to give it up.

Somewhere buried in the pretty, though, is the pain we were trying to escape, the reasons we thought we had to pretty up to begin with. And we have to face the pain in order to heal it and move beyond it or “get over it,” as Novak likes to say.

She helps you face your demons and learn from your relationship history, encouraging you to “change what you can, tone down what you can’t, and watch everything else fall into place.”

Instead of trying to sugarcoat it, Novak presents hard work as hard work and a common sense way to get what you want. She takes a practical approach because she’s built her message on intuition and experience.

If you pay attention to your own intuition and experience, you’ll find it says what hers says. The truth is the truth … and heeding it is the key to your next promotion.

So, if you’re whining, stop and listen up. You have what it takes to develop the relationship and the love you want in your life! It’s up to you — the reins are in your hands.

Don’t be afraid to ask for a little help finding your true self, though. I’m here. Novak’s here. And we’re just two of a host of people who believe you’re somebody’s prince(ss).