Everyone knows dating can be hard, but what if it didn’t have to be? Katie Bulmer, Teachable creator, coach, and dating expert is trying to help her students enjoy dating more. It seems inevitable that everyone will date a few people who are wrong for them. Or watch their friends do the same.
But Katie’s goal is to help people figure out what’s right for them. So they can better spend their dating energy and time. After her own experiences dating the wrong men, she wanted to help young women do better for themselves. “You know, we say we want A, B, and C. But a lot of times we’re not on the road to getting that. Like I would have told you I wanted a good Christian guy, but I wouldn’t find him while I was dancing on the bar, you know what I mean?” Katie said.
Mentorship beginnings
Her mentoring began after she met and married her husband who was a youth pastor. She started out being a mentor and big sister to high school and college girls, a passion that has since grown. “Just being really passionate about the next generation of young women. Raising the bar in dating,” she said is the goal of her work these days. Over her years of mentoring, she found that a lot of her mentees had a lot of the same struggles as one another. She was giving a lot of people the same advice, which is what lead her to create an online course.
Instead of focusing on just coaching people one-on-one, she’s been able to help more people with her course. She still offers coaching, but said “I just tried to kind of condense that and record all the things that I talked about to be able to help more girls more efficiently at a cheaper price.”
Making a plan
Katie’s top advice for most people dating? Go into it with a plan. She frequently speaks at sororities and this is the advice she gives out the most. “An architect makes a blueprint before they break ground, a business owner makes a budget for the next fiscal year, but beautiful girls are walking into a very important decision in dating with no plan,” she said.
She suggests coming up with a list of what matters most. “What matters to you? Write it down, and don’t compromise. There can be a few things but it can be very broad. There’s also the conversation of getting so specific that you’re gonna want to marry a superhuman, so be realistic too,” she said. Basically, have an idea of what you definitely want, and then keep it in mind, don’t compromise, and stay realistic.
Finding your non-negotiables
In addition to noting what’s important to those she coaches, she recommends that they find their non-negotiables. The things that they definitely want in a partner. For some people, that’s faith, for others it’s being close to or in their hometown and near family. Whatever it is she said: “Decide what matters to you, and don’t compromise on that.”
Student success stories
In addition to her online course and her one-on-one mentoring and coaching sessions, Katie also speaks at colleges. She typically speaks at about 10 universities per semester, half of which is in-person and the other half being virtual. And her hard work pays off.
One woman who attended her talk at Mississippi State followed up on her online teaching later wrote to her about the impact her work had. “She said that what I talked about helped her end a four-year-long toxic relationship that she was stuck in. And it gave her the guts to get out. And she was reaching out because she was engaged to a wonderful, nice young man which wouldn’t have happened had she stayed in that not-good relationship,” Katie said.
The gift of mentoring
“I am so thankful to serve as a mentor in the online space. To be who I needed when I was younger,” Katie said about being an online creator. Mentoring is one thing and being able to bring it to more people just takes it to the next level.
“My goal is to not only give you good advice but make it relatable and funny and make our time well spent. My desire is to give very good, time-tested advice, and give it to you in a fun and relatable way,” she said.
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