Modern day matchmaker: 10 ways to improve your love life (right now!)

It starts with you, right now, and in your head.

While this may sound much easier said than done, making radical change in your thoughts about both yourself and love can happen sooner than you think. I normally achieve breakthroughs with my clients in as short as two weeks by getting them to retrain their thoughts, moving away from false negatives and towards the greatest true positive - emotional self-fulfillment.

For true success, you have to move beyond the prejudices and negative feelings that keep us from going forward and embrace radical change, and here are 10 things you can do, right now, and see a real result in your life.

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The negative feelings we have don't appear in a vacuum. We get this notion we're not worth it from somewhere and more often than not, it's someone close to you who planted the seed of doubt that cripples you to this day. You may love this person. They may be your best friend. They may be you own mother. But if they tear you down more than they help build you up, they're part of the problem. The negative thoughts in your head don't need a church chorus. Cut them loose.

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Sometimes the best way to find ourselves is through the good works we do unto others. Nothing gets you out of your head more than finding a greater cause that is fulfilling, but not about you. Through these works you can find gratification in helping others, and in turn, repair your own wounded psyche by knowing that what you do matters. Give of yourself unselfishly to a charity, a soup kitchen, church, or a child in need of mentoring, and you may find that self-worth that has eluded you.

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There's a lot of talk out there about what's wrong with you. You're not the right weight, height, age, race, class, educational background, you don't have the right career or attitude or personality or clothes to find the love you want. Well, stop. Just stop listening to that noise. It's garbage. You will get the love you want out of righteous self-love and openness to difference and change. But you know how you won't get it? By listening to all the media and hype saying you can't. Hearing what's wrong may sell papers and get page views, but it doesn't get you love. Only you can.

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Even if you've gotten rid of the Choir of Negativity in your life you may still find there's one living in your head. Silence it by developing a belief, saying or mantra that you can repeat back at that choir when they start to sing their self-doubting song. A friend of mine, a perfectionist struggling with Bipolar Disorder, often tells her own "Chorus of the Self-Hater" that "I am human and I'm allowed to make mistakes. I can learn from them. And that makes me no better or worse than anyone else." Focus on the truth, and not the lie in your head. Focus on the mantra that you know is right.

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You're never going to meet anyone if you don't... wait for it... meet someone. You have to know people to know people, and the only way that happens is to get out there and expand your network. And this doesn't mean going to the club on weekends, then church on Sunday. This means networking for your career. Networking for your charity life. Networking for your hobbies and things you enjoy. Networking for friends. It means getting out there and living your life and meeting new people, then developing those relationships. And what wonderful things can come from our new found friends and cohorts... including love. You just never know who someone you meet might know. And that person may be right for you.

You may want to completely forget that terrible date where he threw up on you, but you can learn from those bad experiences in order to get to the kind of dates you'd like. Write down your dating experiences in a journal, think about them and study them. Think about what you could have done differently and learn from it. Be an evolved dater. Rather than deny the horrible dates of time past, use those experiences to work for you by learning from them.

Once you get out there and decide you're going to meet new people, you have to remember that for those relationships to develop you need to be attractive to new people. And I'm not talking about attractive as in the right clothes or a hot body, but attractive as in you are open and receptive to meeting new people. As in - a smile. That means dropping the act of toughness we often put on when out in public and checking our defensive body language. Closed arms mean you don't want to be bothered. A frown means you don't want to be bothered. But if you're trying to get bothered by someone who catches your eye, you need to have the right body language. You're not going to attract someone by scowling at them.

A good online profile is like a stock. It'll be working for you even when you're sleeping. Your online profile is an investment and the better it looks, the better it is presented, the more professional, yet personable it is, the better chances you will have. After all, Google is open 24/7. Best believe, when people meet you, they're looking your name up before you can spell your last name. What they find can either make you irresistible or "missable."

Sometimes the old tried and true activities aren't enough to get us out of our shells and into the arms of who we want. We need to try something new, get out of our element and learn something about ourselves. Doing the same thing over and over - like heading to the club or bar in hopes of marriage material - and expecting a different result is Einstein's definition of insanity. Try a new activity. Take a martial arts class or a fine arts class. Attend an author's book reading or join a book club. Don't just stop at going dancing and actually take some dance lessons. And these don't have to be "find a man" activities. They can just be "have some fun" activities.