TOPIC: Conquest of Mediocrity - Approach Anxiety 2nd Attempt

Thanks guys, you are all correct. Way too much analysis and not enough action, and setting the bar too high which basically guarantees I will fail.

The thing about setting expectations too high, I'm honestly confused about how to approach that. Chris says you should be spending 8+ hours per day on your #1 goal, nothing in moderation, totally obsessed with it. I can't spend that much time because I have a full time job, but I take that to mean I should spend as much free time as I can doing this. But Pullup you are definitely right that all making this a "requirement" in my mind does is change my interpretation of spending 1 hour doing drills, completing the number of reps stated in the program, from "success" to "fail". The I get discouraged and want to quit. It's the drill sergeant mentality that breeds negativity.

I need to have a sensible perspective on this. Will it help to spend all that time working on this? Of course. But it will also help to spend 1 hour per day, and it won't help to spend 0 hours per day. 3+ hours > 1 hour > 0 hours. I'm probably still overthinking things, but maybe the problem is I know the plan I set out is just a giant waste of time. I don't gain anything spending 3 hours asking girls what time it is, that doesn't help me progress any further. Maybe what I should do, especially since I've done most of the program already, is allow myself to finish multiple days if I do decide to stay out that long. The point is not race through and half-ass drills, but to be efficient and spend the most time on the drills that are hard for me.

The more central issue I see is lack of dedication to this goal. Do I really want this? Do I really want to hit on girls in public all the time and really try to sleep with them? Do I want to be that guy? Am I doing this to achieve the social freedom to do that, or am I just insecure about my manhood over not being able to hit on any hot girl I want? Do I really want this or not? Why am I even trying to do this program?

I experienced the same thing with going to the gym. I actually really like advice that Arnold Schwarzenegger gives. You have to have a vision. When you think of skipping that gym session or eating that junk food, think of the body you want. Picture having it in your head. Whenever I want to skip drills, I should just picture me in a bar talking to the hottest girls there. Yes, I really do want that, despite all the creative avoidance and excuse making that inevitably surfaces.

I'm going on vacation for 10 days starting Thursday. I'm going to relax and enjoy time with my friends and family. I deserve it. When I get back, I am restarting at Day 4.

If anyone is wondering what is going on with this, I'm going to give one last update.

I am not going to repeat the AA program.

My interest and commitment to these drills suddenly and dramatically changed after I hit the Day 46 milestone in November 2015. In the span of two days, I successfully approached girls with, "I know this is random but I think you're cute", then went to a bar, hit on a hot girl with no help from any wingmen and made out with her. After that, I just could not maintain any dedication to doing Week 7 or 8 drills. I kept quitting, I only very slowly made progress, and once I started going back to repeat drills, I kept quitting even more quickly.

The reason is simple: once I hit Day 46 I finished what I needed to finish. At that moment, I should have started approaching. Instead, I told myself I wasn't "ready". I felt anxiety when imagining real approaching, and thought that was only because I didn't do Week 7 and 8 and once I do it will all go away. After repeating early weeks all the way back to Week 1, I realized I feel some anxiety when doing any drill. No amount of drills will eliminate anxiety altogether. Obviously I am able to approach, whether I feel anxious or not, so there is no more work to do. I struggled to continue with this because deep down I knew I was procrastinating.

I don't authentically want to live a full-time player lifestyle. I just want what Chris describes here .

The task now is to let go of the excuses to not approach whenever I see a girl I want to approach. The biggest excuse became the AA program itself. I was actually getting myself off the hook of approaching by saying, "no you can't yet, you didn't finish the AA program".

Some time soon I am going to start an approach log. By this point the very concept of "approach anxiety" is over-analyzing for me. Just go fucking talk to girls and stop thinking about how it makes you "feel".

As long as you keep through, there should be no issues. I went into approaching without the AA program anyway.

One thing though. Why not schedule Week7 for later. I do think there is value in beating the AA program. Why not do one day of AA a week for example ?

I know this goes against the general philosophy of the program, but I think there would be no harm in say approaching 5 days a week and doing AA on weekends or something.

Just a thought.

I actually already did Week 7 (everything except the last half of the last day’s drill), dragged out over the three summer months of 2016 (log of that is here ). The thought of doing them again does not inspire me at all.

The issue I see is that I can tell how I’m using a perceived “need” to do drills, or “complete” the AA program, as a form of procrastination, and worse yet a detriment to my self-confidence. Here’s what I experience:

• I’m out somewhere, in “approach mode”. I have AA directly on my mind, focused on the need to “beat” it
• I spot an attractive girl I would like to talk to
• I feel anxiety about the idea of approaching her.
• I tell myself, “once you complete the AA program, you won’t feel anxiety”
• Combining the two, I refuse to try approaching a girl whenever it makes me anxious
• Approaching girls will always make me anxious to some degree, so I am perpetually stuck with the “need” to do AA drills

Contrast that with the handful of times I approached a girl and made out with her in a bar:

• I’m just out on my own, not thinking about AA
• I spot an attractive girl I would like to talk to
• I feel anxiety about the idea of approaching her
• Any thoughts about AA or drills don’t cross my mind
• With no excuses I can think of, just me and my admission that if I don’t approach this girl, I’m a little bitch, I suck it up and approach her
• The rest is history

The belief I need to remove all anxiety to be “allowed” to approach girls has now poisoned my mind. The issue is not whether I have AA or not. The issue is whether I can act in opposition to my anxiety. I have thoroughly, completely proven I can. Putting myself through more anxiety just to beat that dead horse is basically self-torture, and that’s why I have no desire to keep doing drills. Repeating Weeks 1 and 2 really drove that home. That still gave me anxiety. But those are easy drills right, especially since I’ve done Week 7! Well sure, they were easy, but they still caused me anxiety. They always will. No amount of repeating them will change that. They are no easier than Week 6 drills, or real basic approaches. All of them are doable.

I mentioned in Termi’s journal that I love the authenticity of GLL. By this point, I believe the main source of anxiety I feel about doing drills is that they are drills. Inherently, I’m pretending. I don’t really need to know what time it is, I’m not really asking you if this restaurant is good, and with later drills, I’m not really hitting on you and trying to get your number. There’s nothing really dishonest about the AA program. If asked, I would tell girls, “I’m doing this program to help my confidence and beat shyness”. I didn’t lie, I didn’t hide anything. When I needed the practice, I was fine with it. Now, since I don’t feel I need it, the inauthenticity of “practicing” is starting to bug me more. I frankly think I’ll be more comfortable telling a girl, “I think you’re cute” when I’m honestly trying to hook up with her. The most uncomfortable moment with those later drills was when I said “bye” and walked away.

I agree with Chris’ “ final thoughts ” on AA. It really doesn’t exist. Boys are afraid to talk to girls. Men talk to women. Am I a boy, or a man? There is no “requirement” to finish the program. Chris never did any such program. Scotty never did any such program. Chris says most guys who just try to approach girls fail, and that’s why the AA program is a better path. But he has to admit: most guys fail the AA program too (and by fail I don’t mean not complete Week 8, I mean they give up completely on trying to cold approach). The problem is most guys (people) are destined for failure. No “program” will train mediocrity out of the average man. If anything, the AA program is a useful screening tool. The kind of guys who are willing to go do something like that (and I mean really do it) are cold approach material, and more generally GLL (hardcore self-improvement) material. It convinces guys they aren’t, and never were, mediocre. I am not mediocre, I know that now. I’ve proven what I need to prove. Maybe once I get some real approach experience I’ll get excited about chipping off the last bits of AA with aggressive screening (why not do that with actual aggressive approaches), but for now I just want to practice “Basic Guy Game”, and more aggressive stuff at night. I know from experience I don’t need any more indirect practice (drills) for that. Direct practice is better.

Finally (sorry for rambling so long), I identified and began solving my discipline problem back in June, and that’s why things really started taking off for me the last few months. Why did I spend six months earlier this year saying every weekend, “okay I’m going out to bars on Friday night” and never did it once? “Because I have too much AA!”, I said. Well, turns out I also said every morning, “I’m going to get up at 5:45, take a shower, brush my teeth, and clean my room”, and I went months without doing that too. The problem was discipline. When I say I’m going to do something, I need to do it. I need to keep my word. “AA” has nothing to do with it, and unfortunately I used that to avoid admitting I had a discipline problem. The dramatic, 180 degree shift in mindset (“I can’t do this because it makes me uncomfortable” to “you’re gonna do this whether it makes you uncomfortable or not”) is what allowed me to reach this conclusion about AA drills. I will approach no matter how anxious it makes me, just like I’m going to get my ass up 5 days a week and go lift weights whether I feel like it or not. Sometimes the laziness will win, but I’ll accept it for what it is and double down the next time. There has never been a more dramatic improvement to my life than when I let go of the excuses to be lazy and just committed to keeping my word.

Great thoughts. Now that you wrote that I see what you are talking about.

That article is just what I needed. I recently had a breakthrough and had thoughts similar to yours.

Waiting until you beat AA to approach girls is reasonable if you do it once and are done with. Once you are just using it as an excuse and stretching it for months, yeah, time to move on.

I guess the best way to summarize it, would be :

This is not only about beating anxiety, this is about approaching DESPITE it.

Approach even if you shit your pants, just do it. Don't wait until you have 0 anxiety, it won't happen until you sleep with 30 girls and it will still probably creep here and there.

The things you wrote are super true and powerful. I need to keep that in mind.