Has the recent death of your spouse left you feeling uncertain and insecure about yourself and your place in the world? Maybe you want to start getting out, meet new people and have more fun but don’t know where to start. Perhaps you‘re even hoping that there will come a day for a second chance at love. If any of this sounds familiar... you are not alone. In this article we will explore these questions and discuss the best way to meet like-minded people and how to improve your chance of finding love.

There will come a time when you‘re ready to move forward after grieving the death of a spouse, to get on with your life and move ahead and discover what this new chapter has to offer. When this happens, you may find it challenging to stop dwelling eternally on what you have lost, and begin to look at the time in front of you as a chance to experience happiness in your life once again. "But how can I move on?" you may ask. "How can I rejoin the social scene and make new friends?" Our experience has shown that it is not only possible to establish new, lasting friendships after the death of a spouse...you have a great chance of finding a new love, as well! Learning the following set of self-reflection skills will help you determine what it is that you want from these new relationships and how to go about creating them.  

First, we suggest you begin by reflecting on the areas of your life in which you are content and then identify the elements that make those areas work. Realizing what is most meaningful and what gives your life purpose is a major step on the path to true happiness. Once they have been identified, you can use these values to seek out activities and situations that reinforce them.  

Identify Your Values for a Happier Life

When exploring your own sense of meaning and purpose, it is helpful to ask yourself a series of basic questions to get the process started. Example questions include:  

What are the things I love to do?
How do I love to spend my time?
What makes me feel good?  

If you need a guiding hand in this process, visit our web site, Focused Attention.com, for our helpful free values exercise. Once you have identified what’s most important to you-your values—you can use this knowledge to further examine all of the areas of your life including (but not limited to) play, personal relationships, social settings and adventure. The more experience you have at recognizing these values when you see them, the better your chances of accepting opportunities for happiness when they come along.  

Identifying what personal relationships and social settings leave you the most satisfied will guide you in the right direction towards meeting new people that will be the most compatible. For example, if contribution and nurturing are values you have identified as important in your life, joining a charitable group will provide you with an outlet for those qualities while introducing you to others that care about similar things. This sort of identification analysis can also be conducted when seeking a new love.  

Get a Second Chance at Love

It is important that you have identified what values you appreciate most in relationships before approaching the task of seeking out a new mate. If you are certain about what you are looking for in a partner, you will be much more likely to recognize them when they arrive in your life. If your relationship values still need a little fine tuning, refer again to the Values Exercise at Focused Attention.com. Spend some time contemplating what it would be like to have an extraordinary relationship with a new mate. Imagine the effect that this would have on your life.    

It can be easy to be all thought and no action when it comes to rejuvenating your life. An important part of creating anything you want is to create some accountability. Enlist the help of some trusted friends and inform them of the specific qualities you're looking for in a mate. Tell them that you are on a project to create a perfect relationship and schedule regular times to meet with this group to talk about strategies that you can use to find such a person. Don't worry if one of your strategies doesn't work. The group can help you brainstorm on what might be a more successful tactic.  

In summary, remember that the purpose of this self evaluation is to turn your focus and energy away from what you don't want in your life- the grief associated with your spouse's death, loneliness, the problems of establishing new friendships and fitting in—and turning your attention instead to what you do want and the ways you can begin to experience them.

Keep in mind that what you focus your attention on will become the dominant force in your life. If your focus is on the never ending flow of opportunities available to you, experiencing true happiness is within your reach.