On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jillian Turecki: 3 Biggest Dating Mistakes You’re Making (Stop Chasing Love That’s Not For You)
Mon, 24 Feb 2025
What do you think is the biggest dating mistake people make? Have you ever chased someone who wasn’t right for you? In today’s episode, Jay welcomes relationship coach, teacher, and podcast host Jillian Turecki to break down the biggest dating mistakes people make. They dive into why relying too much on dating apps can lead to burnout, how the fear of rejection holds you back, and why being single is often better than staying in the wrong relationship. Jillian unpacks why we’re drawn to people who don’t want us while ignoring those who do. She explains how past relationship patterns, toxic dynamics, and a false sense of intimacy create cycles that keep us stuck. They also explore the fine line between honesty and oversharing, how to repair trust after dishonesty, and self-reflection exercises to heal after a breakup. In this episode, you’ll learn: The 3 biggest dating mistakes and how to fix them. Why relying on dating apps alone can hurt your love life. How the fear of rejection and loneliness affect attraction. Why do we chase people who ignore us? When honesty becomes oversharing in relationships. How to repair trust and reflect after a breakup. If you’ve ever felt stuck in dating or struggled with attraction patterns, this episode will help you break unhealthy cycles and make better choices in love. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty. Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:03 Dating: 3 Biggest Mistakes 05:39 The Fear Of Rejection 09:47 Choice In Love 13:36 The Fear Of Being Alone 14:41 The Attraction Paradox 21:37 It All Begins With You 32:00 Find Other Things Attractive 42:48 Telling The Truth Vs Being Too Honest 46:45 Repair Not Being Truthful In A Relationship 56:30 Choice In Love 2 01:01:10 It's All In Your Head 01:04:52 Reflect With Your Partner 01:09:14 Self Reflection Exercises After A Breakup 01:12:13 Jillian on Final Five Episode Resources: Jillian Turecki | It Begins with You: The 9 Hard Truths About Love That Will Change Your Life Jillian Turecki | Linkedin Jillian Turecki | Website Jillian Turecki | YouTube Jillian Turecki | Instagram Jillian Turecki | Facebook Jillian Turecki | TiktokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What are the three biggest dating mistakes?
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become a happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest is Jillian Turecki, a relationship coach, teacher, podcast host, and speaker with over 20 years of experience helping people transform themselves and their love lives.
As the founder of the Jillian Turecki Coaching, she offers transformative workshops, retreats, and coaching that blends psychology, yoga, and somatic practices. Her teachings, influenced by diverse spiritual traditions, connect ancient wisdom with modern relationship dynamics. Jillian's first book, It Begins With You, has nine truths everyone should know.
The nine hard truths about love that will change your life. And it's going to be out on January 14th. Make sure you go and grab a copy if you're trying to figure out your love life right now. Please welcome to On Purpose, Jillian Tarecki. Jillian, it's great to have you here.
Wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me.
Of course, of course. I'm so fascinated by love and relationships. And my last book was all about love and relationships. So whenever I get to sit down with a fellow coach and a fellow author to learn more and understand more, I'm a huge fan of the videos you post on social media. And I think you're doing such a great job of speaking about really, really interesting things when it comes to love.
But I wanted to start off with asking you, because this is, I always try to get a sense of what our audience is worried about and concerned about and challenged with. And one of the big things that keeps coming up is, what are the three biggest mistakes I'm making in dating right now? Like, what am I getting wrong about dating? That seems to be the top question.
So there's a few things. One is it shouldn't just be the apps. I don't tell people get off the apps. Sometimes I say get on the apps. But if you just focus on that, that's going to burn you out and it's going to exhaust you and you're meeting a bunch of strangers. So that's like another mistake that people make is that they're impatient.
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Chapter 2: Why is relying solely on dating apps a mistake?
It's not every day that you meet someone who you want to build a relationship with. Like, it's just not that easy. But you have to get out there. You have to be proactive. Look, there are people who are sitting around on their couch waiting for like that person to fall onto the couch next to them. And it's not going to happen that way.
So you can either live your life to the fullest and enjoy your life and trust that one day organically, it may or may not happen if you put yourself out there and you widen your circle, or you actually have to be proactive. And that might mean going on a, like dating like it's your business, like going on a bunch of dates every single week with as low of an expectation as possible.
Because one of the biggest mistakes that people make in dating, like I have nothing but compassion and empathy for this. But you're texting with someone, you're kind of excited, you feel like there's a vibe. And then you go out and you're like, oh, I don't feel spark or I'm not into it. And then there's this, people then get into learned helplessness.
And when they go into learned helplessness, they're like, you know, it's the why me, this is never going to happen. It's this state that I am in is permanent. Like I will never find anyone. No, dating is really an opportunity for you to practice your social skills. Social skills are things that most people are not that great at, honestly, even the people who think that they're really great at it.
It takes a lot to really talk to someone and not interview them and actually be curious about them. You know, a lot of people are nervous. So practice breathing and being comfortable in your body. And getting to know someone and who knows, maybe you make a friend and maybe you never want to see that person again, but at least you're practicing.
So the three biggest mistakes is just focusing on the apps and not actually expanding your circle and doing new things and letting certain things unfold organically. Number two, impatience. Number three, just sort of high expectations. But I want to add another one if I can.
Please.
People get into these very long, I mean, when I say long, like weeks, texting exchanges with these people. And it gives them a false sense of intimacy. Oh, I have this amazing connection. They never even met the person. And then maybe they never meet. Don't do that. text a little bit back and forth like a day and make a date to either meet on FaceTime, Zoom, or in person.
You really should go about it as if your time is too precious to waste texting back and forth with a stranger who may not be available.
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Chapter 3: How does the fear of rejection impact dating?
And I know that it's like you're putting yourself out there, but I wish there was like a magic pill that I could give people to just get over it. But you have to become more resilient when it comes to that. You know, you can't be hiding behind text and not actually meet the person. It sounds hard, but you have to be stronger than that. Honestly, you really, really do.
And you have to just trust that like you're not for everyone and not everyone's for you. And yes, it's awkward. And maybe we can just all acknowledge the awkwardness of it all, you know, but you still have to if you want love and you want a relationship, you You have to go for it. You can't just be passive.
You're looking for one person to fall in love with you and for you to fall in love with. Yes. And for that, you're going to have to meet a lot of people to find that one person. But all you need is one person to say yes, one person to say I do, one person to say I love you. Yeah. just by the nature of odds, you should know that that probably won't be the next person.
So switching to that, you said one thing about kind of going in at the lowest baseline expectation, which I agree with, because then you're allowing it to become a friendship. You're allowing it to become a nothingship. You're allowing it to become what it is, as opposed to us walking in and going, this next person is going to be my wife, my husband, whatever it may be, my partner.
I think it's so natural for so many of us to want to speed up love. Yeah. Like speeding up love seems to be our addiction and obsession with, I just want to meet the one. Now that we're dating, I just want to get married. Now, you know, it's, we're trying to accelerate love almost. So how do we slow it down and how do we take it back to baseline?
Number one is there is no, the one. there really isn't. I mean, we actually choose who the one is. And this is, this is really, really important. Love, as I'm sure you know, is a choice. Like it's a feeling for sure, but we're so conditioned to believe that love is just a feeling as opposed to a choice. And
you're going to have to make that choice many, many times throughout your relationship, which is I choose you, right? So people want to rush it. And so what they do and what I've done is that we lie to ourselves. And it's also because we've been lied by society that there is, and romanticism, that there is this one person who's going to come into your life.
And rescue you and make your life better. And that once you find that person, like everything becomes easier. And I'm certainly not advocating for people being in difficult relationships. But the more challenges you've had in relationships, the less that you've been modeled. what it is to actually really love someone.
The more you are going to be challenged to overcome and transcend old things and old patterning to actually love someone and to do love, where it's a verb and not just a feeling. So how do we slow it down and we just want to rush it? It's about acknowledging that feeling. So a lot of people they meet, there's chemistry. And I know that this was me. I think if there's chemistry, then this is it.
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Chapter 4: Why do we chase people who ignore us?
He's actually very unsafe, even if not physically, he's going to be unsafe emotionally.
And so there's a maturity that needs to happen to understand that like your type, you have to get under the hood of the car a little bit more and understand like if you're looking for those qualities in a person, and I'm just using this as an example, then really what's actually going to be safe is someone with strong character, someone with presence, someone who has a sense of self, right?
who can actually feel safe in his or her own body. And when they can feel safe in their body, they can actually provide safety for you in the relationship and that you also have to understand how to make yourself safe. So there's a lot going on. I hope I'm not saying too much.
No, not at all.
Yeah, but so there's maturity level here. There's misguided understanding of what it is for someone to truly be embodied and safe and valued. And then there's also childhood wounding. And it could be all part of it.
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Chapter 5: When does honesty become oversharing in relationships?
You see someone who has an amazing job and makes all this money and drives a really great car, that's not their character. It doesn't make them a good partner. And so it's almost like everything we're attracted to about someone isn't what makes them a good partner and makes them good at a relationship. You keep saying the word character and I agree with you. Conundrum. What is that?
Because we're not even seeing that. It seems like we look at how people think and we're attracted to that. We look at how people look and we're attracted to that. We look at what people do and achieve and we're attracted to that. And none of that makes someone a good partner.
No.
They're completely different things, right?
Completely different things. Some of the most intelligent, charming, witty, beautiful people on the planet are also the most unhealthy and the ones who will harm you emotionally. I mean, it really is a cruel joke, isn't it? I'm never going to suggest that you date someone who you're not attracted to. I do think though, and I would really be curious to hear your thoughts, Jay.
Like I do think that with maturity and maybe that's age and wisdom and that looks different for everyone, that you do start to find other things attractive. Like for me personally, someone who's like really present with me and like a good listener, it's not a guarantee. If you're really present with me and a good listener, that doesn't mean I'm going to be attracted to you.
But if you're not present with me and you're not a good listener and you're not interested, that's definitely going to be a turn off. Whereas in the past, I would have felt that in my body. I would have felt that red flag and then intuition that would have felt off in my body. But I would have suppressed it.
And I'm saying this about myself because I represent so many people who I know do this too because I see it all the time. Let me just repress that because I want to be seductive. I want to lure them in. I want the validation. I think they're hot. You know, maybe there's something there. And I think with maturity, it translates as actually, no, like that's actually a really big turnoff.
when we start to have a clear sense of self, and I don't believe that anyone is ever fully whole ever. I think that's the journey. And I think that's the biggest lie. It's two whole people coming together. I mean, if that's really the truth, then we're all screwed, honestly. However, having no sense of self and no center is problematic too. Life isn't binary.
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Chapter 6: How can self-reflection improve your dating life?
Yes.
You know, that does not exist. And I think that, I do think that people know that intellectually, Jay, but I don't, but I still think that a lot of people expect perfection in others. You know, one mistake that many people have made is,
It's okay that I'm flawed, but unconsciously I'm looking for this person who's so perfect, who's going to actually make up for the deficits that I have in my personality and make up for the deficits that are actually inside of me.
I think we've got so disconnected going back to it begins with you. It's just... We've got so disconnected from knowing ourselves and knowing what's right for us and what's good for us. I feel like the amount of people that are just constantly seeking advice from anyone and everyone in their life.
And not listening to themselves.
And not listening to themselves. Yeah. And you have one text thread over here with like nine girlfriends. And then you have, you post it on Instagram and say, I'm dealing with this on my stories just to your private friends. And then you reach out to your family and your parents. And so you're talking to like 27 non-experts about something in your life.
And no wonder you're confused because everyone has their own opinion. Someone's saying, give them another chance. Someone's saying, oh, leave them. And you've just got these, you've also got actions to take without understanding. Yes. And I wanted to ask you, if there is no the one, how do you know who to focus on? How do you know who to kind of make it work with?
Number one, the person who treats you well. And that doesn't mean, I think that, you know, when we're in a relationship for long enough, we will unconsciously hurt each other's feelings. And sometimes we will, even the most mindful of us, will behave or say something or do something that's not filled with a lot of mindfulness. You know, we'll act unconsciously.
but fundamentally you want the person who treats you well, who respects you, who you feel good around. You feel like you can safely express an opinion. You feel like you can be yourself with them. That's so important. I think that is probably one of the most underrated things criteria for choosing a partner is, can you really be yourself with them?
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