When choosing a partner, it’s easy to focus on the qualities we’d like in another person: Must be tall, dark, and handsome. Must come from a good family. Must love dogs. But in this search for our other half, we often miss a very important factor; we forget that in order to find Mr. or Mrs. Right we have to be Mr. or Mrs. Right to someone else. So the next time you’re struggling to find a good match—or struggling to find peace in an existing relationship—I invite you to pause and ask yourself this question:

“What is it like to be in a relationship with me?”

Dr. Alexandra Solomon, one of my mentors and author of Loving Bravely: 20 Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Get the Love You Want, coined the term “relational self-awareness” to describe the process of getting to know and understand your relational self: How do you act, think, and feel in a relationship? How do you fight? How do you love? How do you connect?

“I don’t believe you should simply wait around for that special someone to pop into your life,” Solomon writes. “I believe that your bravest and best work is to look at yourself, understand yourself, and grow yourself so that you can be that special someone.”

I see my clients do their best work in therapy when they’re able to really look at their own role in conflict and resolution, in sharing a household and sharing a bed, in both their strongest and weakest moments. They ask themselves, “How did I learn to handle conflict growing up? What are the spots that feel especially vulnerable for me? How do I show that I care for my partner?” And they find that bringing their best, most authentic relational self to a partnership invites others to do the same.

My advice? Read Loving Bravely. And if you’re in a relationship, ask your partner to read it with you. Really do the exercises at the end of each chapter thoughtfully. Get to know and understand your relational self. Next time you’re struggling, you’ll have so much more insight into why that might be. And when you’re feeling stuck, ask a therapist to help you sort through your discoveries—you may be surprised at how much room you have to grow.