How to Overcome The Fear and Excuses for Not Approaching People by Neil Strauss
A Detailed Explanation on How to Overcome Approach Anxiety and Defeating The Excuses For Not Approaching (Deep Inner Game)
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The Mindset of Overcoming Approach Anxiety
Whether you are male or female, our lives get better if we can connect to more human beings. Think about some great experiences in life, isn’t it through meeting someone, or experiencing something with someone else? However, we have this “Approach Anxiety”, that drags us back from not approaching and getting to know new people.
Approach Anxiety ties back to the shame you projected to yourself and inner trauma. Shame are lies that you tell yourself, coming from the false feelings of inadequacy. You tend to think the strangers are better than yourself by default. (Of course, there are people who think they are better than anyone, but that is just an over-compensation)
You can heal the shame, by seeing an approach as an opportunity you can help somebody to have a great time. Has anybody’s life got worse because you’re in it? No. So why assume these new people would think that way. When you approach in a state of joy and positive intention, everybody would want to be around you. It’s fun to talk to another human being. Even the approach doesn’t work out, you got your feedback. Did you make them uncomfortable? No. Then maybe it’s just about them. Imagine there’s a lovely puppy reaching out to your group, do you guys feel offended? No, because it is adding to your experience and making your day more fun, and the group is happy to stop and play with the puppy. The puppy doesn’t have an agenda. Think of yourself as the puppy, you are just there to give every body a great time
People think they don’t want to approach because they don’t want to fail, but when you go home at the end of the night, there’s only one failure and that is not approaching. You’ll never beat yourself up over an approach. You’ll only beat yourself up over not approaching. When you don’t approach, you’re saying yes to shame and trauma. And giving them more power over you.
There’s nothing to lose if you approach. Even if she says, “Go fxxk yourself”, you’re not in a worse situation than before, because you were not being with her anyway. But when you approach, there’s a chance that you guys would have a good time hanging out together.
People are interacting the whole time. If your approach is casual and interesting, this might be what others want too. Most women on vacation want an awesome adventure and they might be interested. You don’t know if you don’t approach.
Common Excuses For Not Approaching
- “I don’t want to be an intruder.” — What kind of person intrudes? A person who’s disrespectful and doesn’t give people a good time. However, if you can help them have a better time, and you have a positive intention, you’re not an intruder. You talk to them and things could go well with an awesome conversation. If not, you can walk away, and they would keep on talking.
- “Every guy has approached her.” — So approach her again. It means she’s friendly to most people.
- “I’m too tired.” — If there’s a person, that you’re very attracted to, wanting to talk to you right now, would you still feel tired? Probably not.
A List of Empowering Attitudes and Mindsets On Approaching from Neil Stauss
- Good mood
- Energetic: Pushing that inner light outward from the heart through my skin. Be others-oriented, instead of self-oriented.
- Smiling
- Well-groomed
- Confident
- Teasing & playful
- Be unflappable: nothing can get in and change your attitude about yourself.
- Act as if I’m confident and relaxed, just like the persona of Tom Cruise.
- Be non-needy, and less reactive. You lose your stuff if you are seeking a reaction. Don’t let a negative reaction take you down. You are not looking for a reaction. You don’t care so much about the reaction. You’re just observing the reaction, but not getting a rush or down.
- You’re auditioning or testing them to see if they meet your standard. The whole needy frame is I’m walking up to you and hoping you’ll find me acceptable (“If I’m good enough to be validated by them, then I’m okay.”). Instead, you’re walking up to them and seeing if they’re acceptable to meet your standards. You could say, “You’re interesting. Let me ask you some questions. And see if I can hang out with you.” “I got a busy calendar. I’m hanging out with 70 guys on a training program. Maybe you’re cool enough to hang out with us.”
- Remember your last success, pretend like it just happened, before you walk into a bar. Replay the memories of those best approaches.
Exercise
- Just start talking to everybody. The waiter, people on the beach, etc. Just say, “ Hey, you having fun today?” to everyone. No agenda. You just want to be charming all the time, with everybody, and let go of the outcome. Turn on the charm. Radiating your charismatic best self all the time. Be social and talkative. It’s fun.
- Write down how many approaches you are going to do tonight, and specifically, what are you going to do, so you have a goal to focus on. You want to be practicing the skillset. It’s like practicing guitar, you want to have a chord to specifically focus on practicing, instead of picking up a guitar and doing nothing.
- Use 3 minutes to write down what your best mindset and attitude would be like for tonight. Carry the paper in your back pocket. Look at the list when you’re not confident or don’t want to make the approach.
- Write down the excuses for not approaching. Be aware when you use the phase, “It’s a normal thing that…”, because you are generalizing things to rationalise your own perspective.
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