Taking A Break

Today, I’m going to talk about something that is a little controversial.

The idea that sometimes the only way to getter better at pickup, is to take a break from it.

First I want to clarify who this blog post is NOT for. If you have just found out about this stuff, this post is not for you. If you’ve done less than 200 approaches this post is not for you. If you still have problems getting social comfort or attraction with the women you are attracted to, this post is not for you.

And lastly if you are unsuccessful at pick up but have not been actively working on it for at least a year, this post is not for you.

The thing about pickup, is that it’s not like business or weight loss or computer programming. In business or losing weight if you work hard enough and you do everything you are supposed to do, success is virtually guaranteed. Exercise more than you eat, and you lose weight.

Pickup on the other hand is not like this.

The reason is both simple and complex.

The simple explanation is that when it comes to pickup there are a million variables that are OUTSIDE OF YOUR CONTROL. These range from your genetics(which you have no control over) to the girl’s mood, distractions in the environment, other guys interrupting, whether or not the girl is in a relationship, your state that day, etc…

It’s complex because if you tried to list and then control every factor in a cold approach, you’d drive yourself crazy.

This is not even to mention the way the rest of your life affects your game. If you are having a hard time at work, your game will suffer. Having problems with your family? Illness? Taxes? All this will affect your ability to meet, attract and seduce women.

So inevitably as one goes through the process of learning this stuff, there are times when you need to step back and take a break to avoid getting burned out.

Early on in my life I didn’t understand this. I felt like Every second of every day was a choice and I was constantly going backwards in my skillsets if I wasn’t approaching and banging anything that walked. Consequently I ended up getting depressed and trying to kill myself.

Pickup is NOT one of those things where sheer force of will can get you through. You cannot “work” hard enough to get better at pickup if all of your emotions around it are negative.

In one of the first 12M2M groups we had a guy named Andris whose major problem was that he treated pickup like a job. He was ALWAYS worried about making progress to the point that he stressed himself out and ended up going nowhere for the first half of the year.

It wasn’t until he was forced to slow down due to some personal stuff that he took time away from pickup. When he came back after his break, there was a PROFOUND difference both in his attitude towards going out to talk to girls and his results.

Sometimes you have to put pickup on the back burner. For Andris real life situations forced him to do that, but all of us have the choice as to what we focus on daily when it comes to our life.

We can focus on things that stress us out and make us feel bad, or we can choose to focus on the things that make us feel good.

Unfortunately in the beginning it’s rare that pickup will make you feel good, so if you feel like you’ve been hammering away for a long time (like a year +) without any results or you feel like you’ve hit a plateau, try taking some time COMPLETELY off girls and pickup.

What I mean is no ogling girls and thinking about approaching them while you’re put and about, no reading, listening or watching of pickup materials, No talking about P/U with your friends or surfing forums.

You completely turn off the part of your brain that knows about pickup for a few days, a week, sometimes even a month.

Ironically this can be the ONLY thing that works in certain situations.