Setting Holy Goals for Your Love Life This Year
Dating Success 2026
It’s a new year, and your phone is probably full of posts about “manifesting your soulmate” and “making this your year for love.” You’ve scrolled past the vision board tutorials and the dating app optimization tips. And maybe—just maybe—you’re wondering if there’s a different way to approach your love life this year.
There is. And it doesn’t involve manifestation journals or swiping strategies.
It involves something much more powerful: becoming holy.
Why Most Dating Goals Fall Flat
Here’s what I notice every January after years of ministry: most of us set goals about relationships without doing the interior work for relationships.
We say things like:
“I’ll go on more dates this year”
“I’ll finally try that new app”
“I’ll put myself out there more”
None of these are bad goals. But they’re all focused on the external—the doing, the finding, the searching.
What they miss is the becoming.
I recently worked with a woman who came to me exhausted. She’d been on 47 first dates in one year. Forty-seven. She was efficient. She was proactive. She was completely burned out and no closer to marriage.
“Katie,” she said, “I feel like I’m doing everything right. Why isn’t it working?”
Because dating isn’t a numbers game. It’s a formation journey.
What Holy Goals Actually Look Like
CCC 1697 tells us that the Christian life is about becoming a “new creature”—responding in charity and true freedom to our Creator. The Catechism describes this as a life guided by the Holy Spirit, “the interior Master of life according to Christ, a gentle guest and friend who inspires, guides, corrects, and strengthens.”
Read that again: inspires, guides, corrects, and strengthens.
That’s what holy goals do. They don’t just change your behavior—they transform your heart.
So instead of setting goals about finding someone, what if you set goals about becoming someone? Specifically, becoming the person your future spouse deserves.
St. John Paul II, in his Theology of the Body, reminds us that marriage requires “the powers coming from the spirit, and precisely from the Holy Spirit who purifies, enlivens, strengthens, and perfects the powers of the human spirit.”
You can’t give what you don’t have. And you can’t receive what you’re not ready for.
The Three Pillars of Holy Love Life Goals
After years of coaching singles and couples, I’ve identified three areas where holy goals make the biggest difference:
1. Goals for Your Interior Life
This is the foundation. You cannot build a healthy relationship on an unhealthy soul.
Ask yourself:
What wounds am I still carrying that affect how I date?
Where do I need healing before I can love well?
What virtues do I need to grow in—patience? chastity? trust?
CCC 1648 acknowledges that “it can seem difficult, even impossible, to bind oneself for life to another human being.” The Catechism doesn’t sugarcoat it. But it also reminds us that “married couples share in God’s definitive and irrevocable love” and “by their own faithfulness they can be witnesses to God’s faithful love.”
You prepare for that witness now, in your singleness.
Holy Goal Example: “This year, I will work with a therapist or spiritual director on my attachment wounds. I will attend confession monthly. I will spend 15 minutes daily in silent prayer.”
2. Goals for Your Community
No one becomes holy alone. And no one finds their spouse alone, either.
Ask yourself:
Do I have friends who support my vocation to marriage?
Am I involved in a faith community where I’m known?
Who in my life models healthy Catholic marriage?
The Theology of the Body speaks of the “communion of persons”—the deep reality that we are made for relationship, first with God and then with others. Your dating life doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It grows in the soil of community.
Holy Goal Example: “This year, I will join a young adult group at my parish. I will cultivate two friendships with married couples I admire. I will be honest with my close friends about my struggles in dating.”
3. Goals for Your Discernment
Discernment isn’t passive. It’s active engagement with God about your future.
Ask yourself:
Am I actually praying about my vocation, or just worrying about it?
Do I have clarity about what I’m looking for in a spouse?
Am I open to God’s timing, even when it’s painful?
CCC 2565 describes prayer as “the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure.” It’s “the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him.”
Your love life discernment belongs in that living relationship.
Holy Goal Example: “This year, I will make a monthly holy hour specifically to pray about my vocation. I will write down the non-negotiable qualities I need in a spouse—and why. I will surrender my timeline to God every time anxiety creeps in.”
The Difference Between Worldly and Holy Goals
Let me be clear about what I’m not saying. I’m not saying you shouldn’t date this year. I’m not saying you should stop trying. I’m not saying holy goals mean sitting in your room waiting for God to drop someone in your lap.
Holy goals are not passive. They’re profoundly active—just in a different direction.
Worldly GoalHoly GoalGo on more datesBecome someone worth datingFind “the one”Become ready to recognize and receive themStop being singleEmbrace this season as formationFix my dating lifeHeal my heartTry harderSurrender more fully
Humanae Vitae exhorts us to “unremitting prayer” and participation in the sacraments, to “draw grace and love from the ever-living fountain of the Eucharist” and “with humble perseverance” overcome our deficiencies through the Sacrament of Penance.
That’s what holy goals look like in practice. Not white-knuckling your way to marriage. Not manifesting your spouse. But opening yourself—through prayer, through sacraments, through community—to the grace that transforms.
A Word About Holy Patience
I know some of you have been praying for years. I know some of you are tired.
Please hear me: holy goals are not a magic formula. Setting them doesn’t guarantee you’ll be married by December. God’s timing is His own, and sometimes it’s painful.
But here’s what I’ve seen: the people who approach their love lives with holy goals are different. Not because they find someone faster, but because they’re at peace while they wait. They’re growing while they hope. They’re becoming the person their spouse will need.
And when love does come? They’re ready.
Your Homework for This Year
I don’t want you to close this article and forget about it by tomorrow. So here’s your assignment:
Write three holy goals—one for your interior life, one for your community, one for your discernment. Be specific. Put dates on them.
Find an accountability partner. Share your goals with someone who will check in with you quarterly.
Create a prayer intention. Write out a prayer for your future spouse and your own formation. Pray it daily.
Take the KNOW assessment. Understanding your attachment style, temperament, and love languages isn’t just interesting—it’s essential formation for marriage. [Start here at gameof.love.]
This year doesn’t have to be about finding “the one.” It can be about becoming the one—the person God made you to be, fully alive and ready for love.
You’ve got this. And God’s got you.
Praying for you on this journey,
Katie
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Take Action: Ready to go deeper than dating apps? Start your free assessment at → Game of Love
Katie is co-founder of Finding Adam Finding Eve ministry. Learn more at Gameof.Love.