4 Keys to Over Coming Your Nervousness
Here is a good little article by John Alexander on overcoming nervousness.
I think if most men could just tame this one area of their life, there pick up
success would improve greatly.
Overcoming Nervousness with Women
Standing at the magazine rack thumbing through Cosmo, she has the most
gorgeous face you’ve ever seen. Her hair is silky brown. Her skin
looks so radiant and so incredibly soft. You would be on top of the
world if you could pick her this girl up.
You feel the fear deep in your gut.
You know that even if you got your balls in gear and went for it, you
wouldn’t know what to say. You feel so nervous and fumbly that you
would reject yourself if you were her. So you shy away from even
approaching her in the first place.
Does this situation sound familiar? If so, keep reading.
The first thing for you to realize is that all guys get anxiety about
approaching women. I know I certainly do.
But what separates you (and me) from the rest of the guys is…
What You Do About Your Fear.
Most guys let fear paralyze them… not just about chicks, but about
other things in their life like their career… which is why,
unfortunately, most guys will never find the success they want.
First, look at where your fear comes from. The problem is inside of
you. It’s not with the chicks.
If you’re thinking about rejection, then that means you’re making your
approaches with a certain outcome in mind. (I’m just guessing, but I
think if you’re like most guys, your goal is to get laid.)
Try this instead — approach without having any expectations. Have no goals.
Let me tell you about a problem I used to have. I’m inclined to be an
introvert, as I discuss in my book , [insert your affiliate link] ‘How
to Become an Alpha Male.’
So to overcome my shyness, I would force myself to chat up everybody,
no matter who they were… hot girls, ugly girls, fat girls, old
people, men, children, people walking dogs, etc.
I would talk about neutral topics with them, nothing to do with
picking up chicks.
The net result from all of that was I became really good at approaching people.
After that, however, I made a mistake. I said to myself, ‘Since I’m so
good at approaching people and have become an outgoing person, why am
I wasting time talking to anyone other than hot chicks?’
So then I limited the people I talked to… and my anxiety about
talking to random women swept over me once again. It was as if I’d
never had all that practice chatting up strangers in the first place.
At that point I realized it was because I was outcome-dependent.
Because I had thoughts like ‘I’m going to try to lay this chick’ in my
mind… before I’d even opened my mouth to say ‘hi’… and so I would
crash and burn. It sucked.
Here’s something I want you to try. Whenever you go out, talk to three
people, but do it just for practice. Don’t do it for real.
Because it’s just for practice, don’t limit yourself to just talking
to hot women. In general, I’ve found that elderly people (both males
and females) and fat women are easy to talk to.
If it helps, set up a time limit for your practice interactions, like
that you’ll talk to the person for 30 seconds and then you’ll get out
of the conversation. (Say something like, ‘Well, I’m on my way to
meeting a friend. Good chatting with you.’ And then walk away without
making a big deal of it.)
Once you’ve done your practices and feel warmed up, then you can chat
up hot chicks. Again though, do it without having any sort of
sex-related outcome in mind. For example, if a chick passes by you in
a hallway, just say, ‘Hey, I need a quick female opinion on
something.’ (Then ask about something that you genuinely want a female
opinion on.)
Remember though: have no outcome in mind. So it doesn’t matter if the
chick responds rudely.
In fact, when you reach a point that you’ve chatted up lots of women,
you’ll find that eventually rude responses on their part mean nothing.
You’ll have an attitude of ‘ha, how original… I’ve had tons of women
give me that exact same ‘clever’ rude comment.’
I’ve been rejected hideously, time and time again. One chick screamed
‘Go away!’ at me before I could even get out my initial sentence.
Another time I thought it was amusing when I approached a group of two
girls, just for practice, and right after I said ‘hey,’ they both
turned their backs on me in unison, as if they were synchronized
dancers!
Now I just look back on all of that and laugh.
My point is that the more you approach, the more you’ll reach a level
where you notice that most people act in the same, predictable ways.
It’ll bore you rather than cause you anxiety.
Think of it as trying to build a house. You put down one brick at a
time and cement it. Brick, cement. Brick, cement. It’ll take a long
time, but eventually, the walls will be up (which means you’ve
finished the hard part).
To get a bit more psychological, there’s really no such thing as
‘being nervous.’ You don’t ‘get nervous,’ like it’s some kind of flu
virus that invades your body.
All feelings of nervousness come from within. You have a certain
series of thought processes that you go through. You say things to
yourself. (When you think thoughts like, ‘I would reject myself,’ it
sets you up for failure!) You picture the chicks rejecting you. You
feel tense in your body. And so on.
So what you can do to break this is to identify it for what it is.
Notice your negative thoughts and change them. Instead of thinking,
‘Oh my God, this chick is going to act like a bitch to me because I
fumble my words’… think, ‘It’s awesome that I’m making this
approach, because if this chick rejects me, that means I’ve gotten her
out of the way and I’m one step closer to finding my dream girl.’
Notice where you feel tense in your body, and then let your muscles
relax in those areas. For me, I feel tense in my jaw and face when I’m
nervous. So when I relax my jaw and facial muscles, it alleviates a
lot of my tension.
I’ll wrap it up for you by concluding with this advice:
1) Be social for the sake of being social. Nothing else.
2) Remember that the only way to get over your fear is by doing the
thing you fear. The more you do it, the easier it gets, because your
attitude about the experiences will become, ‘Been there, done that,
it’s no big deal.’
3) Recognize your bad thoughts and force yourself to replace them with
good ones.
4) Ease the physical tension you have in your body when you feel nervous.
The best book out there that gets the Bobby Rio seal of approval for approaching
and opening girls is The Art of Approaching. Check it out!
About Bobby Rio I'm Bobby Rio, one of the founders of TSB. I tend to write about what is on my mind so you'll find a mix of self development, social dynamics and dating articles/experiences. For a collection of some of my favorite articles check them out.