I think a lot of the reason why people find themselves in shitty relationships is having a lack of boundaries.
As a man, I have found that establishing boundaries is one of the most important things when it comes to bringing a woman into your life and deciding to spend your time with her.
Having boundaries forms a baseline of respect - it is understanding what one is willing and not willing to put up with from someone else.
What I have found is that a lot of times, people need to experience heartbreak enough to understand what they are and aren't willing to accept.
I think a lot of people run into this problem because many people go through heartbreak after heartbreak and do absolutely nothing to learn their lesson. Many times, this is due to having a victim mindset.
Being able to take what you have learned from other people and establishing a set of boundaries means that you are now setting standards for yourself.
As I have talked about in previous blogs, having standards is incredibly important for both men and women but what is more important is being able to live up to your own standards.
Establishing boundaries and having standards forms a baseline of respect in the sense that one is almost demanding respect from the other person if they wish to share their time.
Either someone will live up to your standards, or they wont and it is important to understand that your time is valuable. If someone isn't willing to put in the effort to respect you or your time, then it is time to move on.
This doesn't go without mentioning that if someone is going to set boundaries, they must also live within their own boundaries.
One's ability to live up to their own creeds is a form of self-respect and one must first establish self-respect if they ever wish for someone else to respect them.
This all ties into the universal law that you attract what you put out into the universe.
If you cannot have genuine respect for yourself or your own time, how can you expect anyone else to respect you or your time?
I have said it before that time is a man's most valuable asset until he meets the right woman and I think this same principle ranks true for women as well.
As a man, you must understand what is and isn't worth your time.
If a man is driven and he is doing the things that he needs to do to be a man, then the right woman can only add to his life.
This does not mean that a man spends his time entertaining hoes and trying to get laid, or entertaining women that genuinely want no part in his life - these things are a waste of time.
A man that is good at being a man will realize that his time is valuable and not just anyone is going to be worthy of it. Simply put, a woman is going to have to prove to him that she is worth his time if he is going to build with her.
It has taken me many years to realize that my time is my most valuable asset and the older I get, the more it makes sense to me.
I have goals and things I plan to accomplish in my life and I will not sit here and waste anymore of my time on anyone that truly doesn't belong there.
But I also know that for me personally, I do not date just to date. I don't waste my time on dating apps, I don't waste my time trying to get laid by a bunch of women, and I damn sure wont waste anymore of my time entertaining women that genuinely take no interest in me.
I learned through my experiences just how important it is to have boundaries and even more importantly, to establish those boundaries with someone else if it ever plans on being serious.
This is the problem a lot of men face today is not being able to set their boundaries early enough on when it comes to being serious with a woman.
If there is no baseline of respect, a woman will naturally try and test those boundaries to see how far she can take it.
If a woman knows right off the bat that you are who you are, you have standards that you live up to and you expect her to live up to, then it will be no surprise that you walk away when your standards aren't met.
What I have found is that women will naturally respect a man more that has boundaries.
A man that knows his time is valuable will naturally make a woman feel better knowing that she is worth his time otherwise, he wouldn't be giving it to her.
When a woman knows that a man has boundaries, she wont try and test those boundaries to the degree that she would if there were no boundaries established at all.
These are all lessons that I learned the hard way - not establishing boundaries is the surest way of wasting your time with someone else.
As a woman, I think it is also important that you have a set of boundaries and standards in which you are willing to put up with.
Like men, a woman's time is extremely valuable and how she chooses to spend her time will determine what kind of men she attracts into her life.
I think part of the reason why so many men and women are single or find themselves wasting their time trying to date is because they don't value their own time.
As a man, valuing your time is focusing on the things that make you the best version of yourself.
As a woman, valuing your time is focusing on the things that make you the best version of yourself.
To me the solution is relatively simple, but it takes work to want to be the best version of yourself.
You have to want the best for yourself if you ever plan on someone else being able to bring your actual best out of you.
If a man is sitting here spending all of his time entertaining hoes trying to get laid, the more he pushes away his ability to attract the woman he needs to bring the best out of him.
If a woman spends her time trying to date around and get attention from men, the more she pushes away her ability to attract the man that she needs to bring the best out of her.
I have said it before that unless someone chooses to be single, the reason why people are single is due to a lack of priorities.
Priority number one is your time because your time is the one thing you cannot get back.
Your time is the one thing you use to work on becoming the best version of yourself through clear focus and pure intentions so that you can attract someone of equal value.
Of course, me being me, I relate everything to relationships with animals.
If you do not establish a set of rules for your dog, what is the dog going to do? Test those boundaries until it eventually learns its lesson.
With horses, if you do not work to establish respect and boundaries as to how you want the horse to behave, the horse will never respect you and it will test you in every which way that it can.
It all starts with having standards, living up to those standards, establishing boundaries, and understanding what is and what isn't truly worth your time.