Personal Growth

How to Identify Your Soulmate

How to Identify Your Soulmate
One of my teachers, the late Dr. David Simon, used to say the purpose of life is to love more and be happy. I believe that each of us has within us, an inherent desire to love and be loved in the truest and grandest of ways. The kind of unconditional, passion-filled love that you experience when you meet your soulmate.

It’s said that your soulmate is the one person who completes you and makes you feel whole and alive. They’re the missing piece to your puzzle—your best friend, confidante, and biggest supporter. When you are with them, there’s an inexplicable connection, a sense of deep love, admiration, passion, and respect. They finish your sentences, touch you in just the right way, and make you feel as though you’re the most important person in the world—with only a look.

Are There Soulmate Secrets?

If you’re with your soulmate, you know exactly how it feels. And, if you’re on the lookout for your forever love, you may have some doubt that they actually exist. Maybe you believe fairy tales don’t exist and that true love is something of the Renaissance past. Yet, you likely know someone who seems to have found that which simply does not happen—not in today’s world, anyway. So, what’s their secret? Were they just lucky or is there some formula to overcoming the obstacles you face in finding (and holding onto) your perfect love?

There are some important factors in identifying the things that may be in the way of finding your soulmate to begin with. The big three are your own baggage, lack of clarity in what you want and need in a relationship, and a failure to properly vet the person you’re in a relationship with. Let’s explore.

1. You’ve Got Baggage

Without a doubt, the biggest obstacle to finding (and keeping) the love of your life is usually yourself. Past experiences that ended badly left you feeling betrayed, scared, confused, wounded, and deeply hurt—maybe even traumatized. If you were never taught how to navigate those events by releasing your negative emotions and limiting beliefs, it’s highly likely you buried your pain, pulled up your bootstraps, and went about life as best you could.

Where you run into problems down the line is when those old feelings and beliefs spur you into self-sabotaging behaviors either by rejecting future relationships entirely (and branding your position as one of stout independence) or torpedoing the relationship before it even gets off the ground. In the rare event you make it beyond these first two hurdles, the third will likely present itself sometime after the six-month mark.

You’ll recognize it as a general lack of respect or perhaps an overall attitude of complacency. Everything the other person does irritates you. They’re no longer the person you fell in love with and you notice you’ve become overly demanding, critical, and judgmental—or you find yourself citing everything they do as evidence that they’re not “the one.”

If your baggage is preventing you from moving toward the notion that it’s even possible to be in a happy, healthy, committed, and fulfilling relationship, you may want to explore how to let go of past emotions, beliefs, and patterns. If your baggage has you repeating self-sabotaging behaviors, you may want to consider working with someone who is trained in helping you eradicate such conduct so you’re able to nurture your relationship in a healthy, effective, and efficient way.

2. Lack of Clarity

The next factor that may be blocking your path to your soulmate has two parts:

  1. Not knowing what is most important to you in your relationship
  2. Lack of clarity around what you truly desire in your ideal partner
Your thoughts become your reality. What you focus on becomes stronger and what you take your attention away from withers. You have to know who you are and what lights you up (in a positive way), and you also need to have a clear understanding of what values, qualities, and characteristics you’re seeking in the other.


Your first step is to elicit your relationship values. Your values are encoded in your unconscious mind as being the most important thing to you. You have values for every area of life—career, relationship, health and fitness, family, personal growth, spirituality, life, etc. Knowing your relationship values teaches you about YOU—what makes you tick at the deepest level. Most people don’t even know what you need, yet you expect those you get into a relationship with to have some kind of crystal ball and meet your needs without your conscious participation.

The second step is to make a list of things you want and need in your ideal life and romantic partner. One approach is to make three columns:

  • Column 1: Things that you’d like to have but aren’t necessarily deal-breakers if they’re not present
  • Column 2: Things that are 100 percent must-have’s
  • Column 3: Things that are absolute no-go’s
Once you have this list, you have what you might call your ideal partner avatar. At this point, you now know your relationship values (who you are) and you have the criteria of the person you want to attract.

3. Failure to Take Proper Inventory of the Person You’re With

This potential block to your soulmate warrants addressing because society tends to approach this step approached backward. Many people get together with someone because of one attractive attribute or another, without taking an honest look at whether their values are aligned, their mindset is compatible, or their level of emotional intelligence is on par. Instead, you tend to base your decision on physical or social attraction first and foremost, which ultimately peters out once you realize the person isn’t who you thought they were (or who you wanted them to be).

Sterile as it may sound, it’s important to approach finding a soulmate much in the same way as you would hiring your next VP. It requires an interview process—going on a date, sharing as much about yourself, your values and what works/doesn’t work, and finding out (as quickly as possible) if you’re a match. There’s nothing worse than getting a year or two into a dating relationship before realizing it couldn’t be further from what you were envisioning. Taking the time to vet the person you’re considering as your life partner will prove beneficial, if you are willing to forego the instant gratification of landing the hot chick (or guy) in lieu of getting to know who you’re considering sharing your life with.

This can be challenging in the moment because putting yourself out there in terms of what is important to you may cause the other person to pull back, shy away, or straight up say they aren’t interested nor emotionally invested. No one enjoys rejection and yet, if you can rise above the notion that you’re being rejected and, instead, analyze the data you’re receiving objectively, you have the opportunity to gain a level of clarity and happiness that has the potential to save you months or even years of energy—moving you ever closer to the one who is out there looking for you.

While there are individuals who are called to walk solo, or who prefer to live with more casual relationships, most carry an innate longing to connect with and share in the deepest, purest, and most joy-filled love with your person. You go through life having “close calls” and every time you get into the next dating relationship, you hear that voice inside asking, “is he/she the one?” Take some time to consider the three big ways to pinpoint where you’re going wrong—and also how to determine if your next crush or special person is actually your soulmate.