“How do I know if they’re the one?” I get this question more often than I can tell you. But truthfully, I don’t believe there’s only one person in the world for us. And trying to fit that perfect relationship into your preconceived love story presents a number of challenges and very, very often keeps people in bad relationships longer than they should be.

Instead, we should all focus on how we can become the one, ourselves. And as we grow, there may even be more than one “one” that becomes our perfect fit at different times throughout our journey. This episode is all about rethinking the recipe of a great relationship – not as two people making a whole, but two whole people coming together to allow a beautiful relationship to unfold. 

On that same topic, some exciting news: I’ve written a book (co-authored by Dr. Jade Teta, host of the Next Level Human podcast) all about how relationships are not here to complete us, but rather to grow us. You’re going to love this one – stay tuned for release details! 

In this podcast episode, we’re talking about:

• How to know if they’re the one
• Scarcity vs Abundance mindset
• Focusing on personal development vs finding true love
• Establishing strong values, standards and boundaries
• Why relationships require time apart
• How to have a better relationship
• Dating advice

Do you agree that there is no “one” person out there for us? Disagree? I’d love to discuss more! Email me or send me a DM on Instagram @emilygoughcoach. 

CONNECT WITH EMILY

Book A Private Coaching Call With Emily To Work Together.

Get Your Free Guide “The Four Tools Missing From Your Relationship” here

Join Emily’s email list here

Co-ed Group Coaching Program – details coming soon!

Instagram: @emilygoughcoach

Email: Info@emilygoughcoaching.com            

REFERENCES

Episode 277 | Are You Waiting Around To Be Chosen? (Standards, Boundaries & Expectations)

Episode 354 | How To Know You’re Healing: Emotional Regulation, Self-Trust & Inner Peace

Episode 340 | The Hidden Costs Of Losing Yourself In Relationships

Episode 336 | Less About Red Flags In Relationships, More About Compassion & Self-Forgiveness For Wanting To Be Loved

Episode 328 | Certainty Is An Illusion: Learning To Focus Your Energy & Intentions

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TRANSCRIPT

I don’t personally believe that there is only one person in the world out there for us that is so deeply rooted in scarcity, and it is so much more likely to make us wrap ourselves up in relationships that aren’t working. Sometimes if we try to convince ourselves that someone is the one, or we perhaps convince ourselves that we will never find this one magical unicorn of a human who is walking the globe for us,

I’m Emily Gough, a human connection coach, writer, and speaker with an insatiable sense of curiosity and adventure, always asking more questions and using the power of stories to teach, learn, and Grow. We boldly explore relationships, connection, and the nuances and complexities of the human experience with compassion, honesty, and a sense of humor. With both solo episodes and highly curated guests,

sharing incredible stories, experiences and expertise. The Room to Grow Podcast takes the entire idea of growth to the next level, all while covering the uncomfortable topics many of us would like to avoid. There’s always more room to grow. Let’s do this. Hey, hey. Welcome back to The Room to Grow podcast Emily here, and it has been a little while since I recorded a new one through April.

I was re airing older episodes, partly, partly because just when there’s so many episodes that I, I have now that there are some really great gems and, and really popular episodes that sometimes get missed because they just get buried because there are now hundreds of episodes. So that’s something that I like to do, and I was very tied up in April because I co-authored my first book with my dear friend Jade Tida.

We have been planning this for two full years, and we wrote the entire first draft in April. It ha it came out so much better than either one of us even anticipated. We are so proud of it. So there’s going be more coming on that the book is called You Grow Me, and it’s based around the entire idea that our partners are not there to complete us.

Our romantic partners are not there to complete us. They’re there to grow us and vice versa. Relationships are, are are there to, to fuel our growth. And it’s going to address everything from dating to improving your sex life, to increasing your connection with your partner, increasing your connection with yourself. A lot of the things that I teach on this podcast,

all of these things are, are really brought together and intertwined and Jade and I are just so excited to, to get to share this with you. So it will be coming out, the book is being published in either spring 2024 or it might actually be as early as this fall potentially. I just kind of got worried about that, that it may,

it’s sort of taking on a life of its own and it might actually get published in the next few months or it will be like a year from now. So I will keep you posted on that. There is also going to be a live relationship event that Jayden and I will be co-hosting in the fall. So you are going to want to stay tuned for that.

I have like all the announcements coming and, and hold onto your hats because I am also going to be, for the very first time ever, I have, I’ve never done this. I mean, I haven’t done any of these things before. I’ve never published a book. These are all new things, but I am also going to be co co-hosting,

co-creating a co-ed. So men and women are welcome to join this a co-ed group coaching program, and it is going to be happening very soon. It’s gonna be happening in the next month or so. So I’m going to put a link in the, in the show notes to get yourself on the email so that you’ll be the first to know when it comes out,

because I’m gonna have details about that in the next couple weeks. So stay tuned for that. If you’re not all all already following me on social media, make sure you do that too. So I’m over at Emily Goff, coach on Instagram. The easiest way to find and connect with me, Goff is g o u g h. And make sure to just like keep an eye out because this is going to be really,

really cool. Just I, I I can’t wait to share more and I will have more details for you very soon. So stay tuned for that. And I’m also going to be getting back to my weekly emails. Again, April just got away from me because I was so tied up writing the book. Jade and I are actually going to record a podcast episode all about the process of writing the book too.

So you can, you can hear all about that. That’ll probably be the next month or two as well. So I just have like all kinds of of things coming down the line for you that are very exciting. So now we need to get into today’s topic because this is a big question that I get a lot. I get this one a lot and this is also partly the premise that,

that the book is, is written around as well. How do you know if they’re the one? How do you know if they’re the one? I get this question more often than I can even tell you and I get it because it’s this idea that we are searching for the one we are searching for that that one person who is going to love us the way that we,

we have never been loved to make everything feel okay in the world, and that they will be there to support us and, and they, they, they will be there to hold our hand until the end of time. Like really, we don’t want to admit to ourselves that that’s what we’re asking when we’re asking if, if somebody is the one. But that’s basically what we’re asking.

Like we’re pretty much looking for the Hollywood fantasy as much as we don’t necessarily want to admit that that’s what we’re looking for. And I get it because like, who doesn’t want that? Right? Of course we all want that and and most people who say that they don’t want that are, are potentially fooling themselves. However, I take a different view on relationships and again,

I am, I still would love to be able to tell you that there’s like that, that one person, but that’s also there, there are multiple, multiple aspects that I’m gonna take on this. I don’t personally believe and disagree with me if you want. I don’t personally believe that there is only one person in the world out there for us. I just don’t,

I I don’t think that there is only one single person. I think that there are different people who can be the one for us at different times in our lives. Different like timing, circumstances, you know, the way that two people cross paths based on their own growth at the time. Like maybe there’s someone who would’ve been a great fit for you,

but they haven’t quite grown sort of enough to be at your level. Not that you know, one is like better than the other, just like different levels. There can be so many factors that come into this. And the other thing that I want to challenge you on with this is that if we, if we wrap ourselves up in the idea that there is only one single human walking the globe out of 8 billion people who is best suited for us,

that is so deeply rooted in scarcity and it is so much more likely to make us wrap ourselves up in relationships that aren’t working. Sometimes if we try to convince ourselves that someone is the one, or we perhaps convince ourselves that we will never find this one magical unicorn of a human who is walking the globe for us, there are so many, so many problems with that when we think that there’s only one other human being out there for us.

And you may roll your eyes at this because this may sound like personal development bullshit, but I’m going to challenge you to instead focus on becoming the one, become the person that you want to date. Because there, there are multiple angles to this. First of all, we can’t, we can’t predict with any degree of certainty that we are going to meet the right person for us.

Like, like we just, we just can’t. We can believe it. And, and I absolutely believe that that is possible for like everybody, but we can’t guarantee it. No one can guarantee that. So we still always have to come back to the relationship that we have with ourselves. Even if someone could give you e even if I could give you a guarantee right now that you will meet the exact right person like a month from now or whatever,

and you will, you’ll be together until death do you part. You still need to work on the relationship with yourself because you are the one who is going to be getting out of bed with you until death do you part. Relationships will always end in one way or another. They will end, they will either end by death, one of you is going to die sooner than the other.

They will either end because of potentially, you know, a, a breakup, a divorce, something like that. The, the numbers unfortunately do tell a a tale, right? Like we, we do know that that is often the case that that can be very much a factor and when it talks about, but I don’t wanna take all the romance after this because that,

that’s not what I’m trying to do. But I also want to challenge you to think of it in a different way as well. Because when you think about becoming the one, it’s not only for your own sake that should be your top priority is like becoming the one, like the person that, that you would want to date for your own sake and for the sake of building a beautiful,

healthy, fulfilling life that excites you and like makes you want to jump outta bed in the morning. But on top of that, the person who is your potential match or, or the, the number of people who, who would potentially be an ideal match for you, they are going to want to date someone who is, who embodies all of the qualities and,

and values and standards and stuff that, that they have. So if you have not reconciled with your own standards, boundaries, expectations, the way that you carry yourself, the way that you build and create your life, then you actually probably wouldn’t be a good match for them. This is a two-way street. This is very much a two-way street. And,

and the, the, the person out there who is an ideal match for you is going to see all of all of the, the beauty and incredible power and, and strength and bravery and courage and, and everything that, that you possess and, and the potential that you possess. And they’re going to demand that you live up to that in a lot of ways and to hold you accountable to that.

And of course there needs to be like communication around that and everything else. And, and, and that’s like a whole conversation in itself. But the question, the very question of wondering if someone is the one is rooted in looking for something to hang onto, like some sort of certainty that you can stake your future upon. And, and I want that too.

I get it. Trust me, I get it. As someone whose life has been in chaos for several years and has only like started to stabilize in the last year or so, I understand that sentiment deeply. But anyone who has lived enough life knows that certainty is an illusion. Certainty is an illusion. We do know that on a logical level. We,

we try to ignore it sometimes, but it certainty is an illusion. And when instead we are in a relationship or we are getting into a relationship where we can open and, and allow ourselves to be our true genuine selves, to let the other person truly see us flaws and all, we’re able to live so much more deeply and completely and it allows us to be more present with the person and in the experience of the relationship itself.

And to me, that is much more likely to sustain lately to create a relationship that will sustain over the long term. If you can live in the present rather than wrapping yourself up in the the 5, 10, 20 year plan. Ironically, living in the present is far more likely to create the relationship that will sustain over the next 5, 10, 20 years rather than writing the story of what we think the next 20 years of our lives should look like and then trying to jam a particular person or relationship into that story that we’ve created about what it,

it so-called should look like, right? When we try to jam a particular person or relationship into that story, it’s going to backfire. And instead, if we can be, if we can allow the, the, the future to unfold, if we can trust the process, trust the journey, trust ourselves enough to be able to recognize that no matter what comes,

whether we stay with this person or we don’t, we can grow as a direct result of being with this person. We can fuel our own growth. We can allow things to happen and know that we’ll be able to figure it out no matter what goes on. You’re going to actually probably find that, that that is a, a much happier and healthier way to live.

And in my opinion, it creates much healthier relationships. That’s sort of the irony. We want the certainty, even though we know logically the certainty is an illusion. And we also need to recognize that when we release our, our need for, for the certainty, some of those things may actually end up playing out in a, in a much more beautiful way that can knock your socks off in the best possible ways.

And yes, when we’re getting into any relationship, we, we do need to be clear on our, our values, our standards, our boundaries, and to be open to exploring possibilities that you hadn’t considered before with this person, right? So I’m not saying, you know, like don’t, don’t have anything in mind at all for what you are looking for in a relationship or what you want your life to look like,

like the vision that you have for your life, absolutely have that. But you can have that while remaining simultaneously a little bit detached from it. You can have the vision of what you want and hold that alongside the detachment from it to see what else the universe wants to give you that might actually be even better than you are, than you can even imagine right now.

So being clear in your values, your standards, your boundaries, those are super important and, and that will allow you to, you know, start calling in the, the right, the right people or the right person. And also be open to exploring what life might look like with someone that you maybe hadn’t expected. Someone that maybe has qualities that you hadn’t anticipated or,

or aspects about them or the way that they want to live their life that you had never considered before. And see how you both, if it feels like the right fit, see how that might actually be able to work with the two of you co-creating a life and relationship together. Because you might be surprised at the aspects of the relationship that could grow and develop in a beautiful way that you couldn’t have otherwise predicted or had originally written into the story of how you thought things would go.

This is an important aspect to this too, you know, if, if you’re questioning if if someone is the one or if you, you know, actually I would recommend this for, for any relationship, whether you’re questioning it or not, whether you, whether this is a new relationship, whether this is a relationship that you’ve been in for 20 years,

whatever it is, spend some time apart, spend some time apart. I’m not talking months at a time. I’m not even talking weeks at a time necessarily clicking, I’m talking like some, some outings for yourself. Perhaps you go away for the weekend with girlfriends or you go away for a weekend with, with the guys, you know, whatever, depending on how you identify when we are in relationships sometimes,

and the, the instinct that we have can be to drive even closer to each other, especially if we feel like there’s any sort of, of issue in the relationship that’s maybe making, making us really anxious or anything like that. And, and this, this all needs to be part of the communication between the two of you and everything else. Like this is a very nuanced conversation.

So please understand that like I’m only, I’m only covering sort of like one angle of this. I’m trying to cover as many angles as I can. But this particular angle, there’s, there’s a lot to unpack here, but I felt that it was important to, to mention in this, in this episode about cultivating intentionally spending some time apart. Because if your instinct is to draw super close to your partner,

like almost smothering each other, that can really actually stifle things. And it’s not about spending a ton of time apart. It’s, or spending, you know, way more time together. It’s a both and not an either or. So this, this is probably going to really benefit, I would argue most relationships, some, some time apart together. And depending on what your current situation is,

you may actually want to spend more time apart and more time together. Not, or and, and and, but make it true quality time as schedule it in. And the reason why it’s so important to spend some time apart is that it allows you the space to grow yourself, to explore who you are and your own personal interests and relationships with friends and stuff like that to,

to figure out who you are and to give yourself that space to grow. And the benefit of that is that you’ll have a whole lot more to bring back to the relationship and it can actually serve to deepen the relationship. Esther Parrell has talked about this a a huge amount where there’s this, there’s this line where love is love can sometimes have, have difficulty coexisting with desire because love is sort of like safety and comfort and all of those things.

And desire is not, and we have to all find a, a unique balance. This will look a little bit different for everybody. So again, there’s no like straight hard answer on this, but you need to be able to find and cultivate your own unique balance of spending some time with yourself for yourself and spending like really quality, like great quality time with your partner as well and finding what works for you in those in-betweens.

And not only are things like this more likely to help you determine if they’re the right person or, or fit for you and vice versa, but it will also serve to open opportunities to make the relationship even better when you take the time to spend some time on your own too. Like the best relationships are the ones with two whole complete complex humans with,

with beautiful, fulfilling lives coming together and choosing to co-create a relationship with each other and being present enough to allow it to unfold rather than having this entire story of how we think that something should go or how exactly how someone should behave or something like that, that closes us off from our own growth too. And yes, sometimes growth is going to mean that this particular a like a particular relationship might not be the best fit or maybe this particular version of this relationship that you have with the other person needs to to die so that you can both co-create a new version together that is so much healthier and stronger as a direct result.

So this is not to, you know, I I hope that, I hope that this episode isn’t making you cynical because as I have embraced a lot of these philosophies and really put them into practice deeply in my own life and, and worked with clients around these philosophies as well, I see a common thread amongst all of it. And the common thread is that there,

like people, and, and I’ll, I’ll just, I’ll speak for myself here, but I’ve seen this, this play out with clients as well, feeling so much more secure and safe within myself and being able to love so much more deeply and openly without getting so wrapped up in an outcome. And it has allowed even more beautiful relationships to unfold in my life in a powerful,

powerful way. And I’ve seen this exact same thing with my clients as well. This is a really, if you can open to start to shift some of your philosophies around this and, and to maybe play with some of these ideas a little bit, you might be surprised at just how powerful it is. So this question of like, how do you know if they’re the one,

it might, it might be the wrong question. It’s like, how do you know if, if this is the right person for your growth, well are are you growing? Are they growing? Is the relationship growing? Do you feel like more deeply connected or not? And if you don’t feel, feel more deeply connected, that’s not to say go break up with the person that’s to say,

Hey, let’s start having some conversations. Let’s open the doors of communication. Let’s start maybe going out and doing some stuff on my own that like lights me up and excites me and like seeing how I can explore myself and different aspects of my own life and then seeing how that will actually potentially benefit the relationship at the same time. There’s so many different angles to this,

but I, I really want to hear your thoughts on this one because this, this is, this is a, a crucial part I feel of the way that we approach relationships and if we can start to shift the lens that we look at relationships with, we may actually find that it allows us to have so much more deeply connected relationships to go so much deeper into love,

including with ourselves, especially with ourselves. So let me know how this goes. Okay, well we’re at Emily Goff, coach and over on Instagram. Or send me an email at info Emily Goff coaching.com. Make sure to jump into the show notes to get on the email list. I am getting back to my weekly emails again, like I kind of got like thrown off a little bit with April with all the things that,

that were going on. But that’s where you’ll be getting all the information about the upcoming live event, the book being published and this brand new group coaching program for men and women co-ed group coaching program. I’ve never done a co-ed group coaching program before and I can’t wait to tell you more about this because there’s a lot of reasons why I’m doing this and I’m really,

really excited to bring people together in this. It’s going to be super fucking powerful. So I can’t wait. Okay, so let me know how this goes, how you were feeling about this question around like if they’re the one. I really wanna hear your thoughts on this, so let me know and we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening.

If you want more, one of the most common questions I get is where do I even start doing this work to create deeper connections and better relationships? I’ve got a free 15 page guide for you called, where Do We Begin? This is the very foundation that you need to start building healthy relationships with others and with yourself. This is my gift to you and multiple people have referred to it as life-changing.

You can find it over a room to grow podcast.com or check the show notes to go download it and have it sent straight to your inbox. Thanks so much and stay tuned for more episodes weekly.