How To Overcome Your Approach and Social Anxiety

The most common questions that I hear from
-“How do I learn to approach women?”
-“How do I get over my fear of approaching women?”
“How do I start conversations with women?”

The good news is that the answer is quite simple. The bad news is that it can take time. The biggest problem you face is that you most likely don’t want to take the time to solve this problem –  you want a solution overnight.

Like I tell my students, give yourself a little bit of time and space to develop this skill. And whatever you do, don’t compare yourself to other men. The more you allow yourself to be ok with going at your own pace, the faster you’ll grow anyway because you won’t be fighting or beating yourself up internally.

If you weren’t afraid of approaching women – if you had no fear, no worry, no nervousness when you saw a woman you want to approach – how long would it take you to get good at talking to women?

Not long at all.

From this place, you would approach women with child-like curiosity and freedom…and masculine sexuality, and you wouldn’t be hiding behind a wall – a wall implies that there’s fear.

Without the wall of fear, you’d be real and genuine and you wouldn’t have a hard time just saying “Hello, I want to meet you!” Your openness and curiosity would be very well received.

Understand that you already have all this naturally inside you – you just have to realize it and bring it out. No matter how much a part of you it seems, the fear or nervousness you feel around women isn’t your natural state.

So where does this fear of approaching, talking, and being social come from?

Over the years, you’ve learned to build walls and layers to protect yourself.  As life went on, you’ve experienced traumas, hardships, and painful experiences and most likely this has lead to seeking validation from others – or wanting separation from others – to protect yourself. And the mind did what it does best: It created stories and interpretations about all these experiences that have happened to you – and for some men, connecting with women becomes a big problem.

The only way to really learn what is in your way is by doing – you don’t need to read any more books or watch any more videos. Get out there and approach and learn what’s stopping you from having the kind of dating and sex life that you want.

When you start to become more social and approach more, you’ll notice that a lot of these stories that are buried under the surface will come up like weeds. The more you face them and get rid of them, the more you will start having fun meeting women and socializing.

When you start going out, play with the idea that it’s not about getting good with women but instead getting good at connecting and socializing.

Most men that are having a hard time connecting with women are either…

• the Mr Nice Guy who’s very in touch with both his and others’ emotions – he’s scared to approach because he doesn’t want to upset people. Nice Guys seek validation and you tend to feel their anxiety and fear and that they don’t want to say the wrong thing or offend anyone. Or…
• not afraid of approaching – they can approach and talk to women – but for some reason, their conversations never lead to numbers or dates. Men that are walled off emotionally struggle with connection. Women can’t feel what’s going on with them and can’t trust them, and they just don’t feel genuinely connected.

If you are getting a lot of cold, shut-off energy and a lot of rejection from women, you are most likely walled off.

Generally, women are going to reject men hard if you can’t feel. They reject them often and reject them harder, because if you aren’t giving her any emotion to work with on the approach, she will feel that and reject you because she can’t feel a human being connected with her.

So in order to get good with women, you have to work on either desensitizing to the fear of approaching and/or on feeling and connecting with women.

Exercise For Both Desensitization and Connection

The 100 Hellos – This is a great exercise to warm up before heading out for an evening, but I love it as practice by itself  because it’s one of the best exercises to show you just how nervous you are when socializing, how nervous you are about being seen by others, and how much are you willing to genuinely connect to and be open with people.

Head to a busy street, mall, or other area and say hi to 100 people in a row, without stopping or skipping anyone – men, women, old people, young people. This exercise isn’t about women. It’s about talking to everyone.

Why do this? You want to do this so that you can:

• get used to being seen
• make a connection with the first word out of your mouth by saying hello
• have a higher energy
• practice making and holding eye contact
• get used to feeling the people who are walking towards you
• let go of the need for validation when someone doesn’t respond or say hi back.

It’s ideal if you can take a friend and have them follow you and count for you so that you aren’t thinking too hard. You can do this exercise alone but if you have a friend, invite them along to make it that much easier to get out of your head.

The biggest mistake you can make while desensitizing yourself to approach is thinking all the time. Your goal is to feel your whole body, get into flow, and especially relax into the core of your body. When you speak from the feelings in your body, you convey curiosity, conviction, and turn on; all the things that women need to feel from you.

But it’s about more than just saying “hello.” Here are some fundamentals to remember when doing this exercise:

1. Make eye contact with each person – really look into them and connect with them through your eyes, even if it’s only for a split second.
2. You’ll most likely get nervous before or after you start doing this exercise. Make sure to slow down – physically, verbally, and ESPECIALLY mentally. It’s all about working on getting out of your head and dropping your awareness into your body – your heart, your core, your feet against the ground, etc – feeling your body and emotions, and feeling the emotions of the people you’re saying hello to.
3. Don’t worry if you miss a few – or many – people at first. Just do your best to not skip anyone. If you say hi to 10 people in a row, try to beat your next run with more in a row. Make it fun.
4. The more relaxed, in your body, and connected you are to other people when you say hello to them, the more people will respond to you.
5. If you have trouble getting people to respond, you’re probably rushing or anxious, too quiet, or disconnected/in your head. Keep working on it!
6. Another thing to watch is if you’re getting their attention and saying hello in time for them to hear you and process the fact that you’re talking to them before they walk past you. If you only say hello right as you two walk by each other, the person won’t have enough time to respond – if they even realize you said something. You want to engage them at least a few feet before you pass each other. You have to learn to feel out the timing, how fast you two are walking past each other, if they’re distracted by something, etc.
7. People on the street are often in their own bubbles, in their own heads, and dealing with their own insecurities and what’s going on in their day. You have to penetrate through all that.
   
   Along those lines, it can be helpful to make eye contact – again, that’s where the connection really happens – before you say hi.
   
   But many times that just won’t happen, and that’s when you use your voice and words to get their attention, followed by then connecting through your eyes and smile.

I challenge you to do this exercise every day for 30 days and see how it transforms your life. Not just with women, but in every aspect of your social life.  It may take 20-30+ minutes at first, but it can be done in as little as 10 minutes once you get into the habit of it.  If you skip a day, start all over again.

The more you do it, the more and more you’ll learn! You’ll be surprised at just how deep this one little exercise can go, how much it can do for your overall sense of self-confidence, and how much it can desensitize you from your approach anxiety and social anxiety.

Just remember to work on being aware of your body and not thinking too hard, being connected, and genuinely being interested in the people you’re connecting to.

Each little connection can be a beautiful little moment in your day.

If you want to take it another step further after you’re done with your hellos for the day, do a round focused just on women, and then walk around and give out genuine compliments to at least ten women.

When giving compliments, remember all of the fundamentals from the hellos, feel your body, and really slow down and feel the words you’re saying to her. The more you are in touch with your heart and your sexual turn-on and the more you really look into and connect with her, the better your compliments will be received.

Notice if you’re rushing through the compliments and work on slowing down, relaxing, and enjoying her. The more specific and real the compliments are, the better. Also notice if you’re looking for a certain response (validation) from her, and work on coming more from a place of giving freely rather than hoping and praying for her to validate you in return.

These two things can completely shift your world around approaching women and just being social if you keep at them consistently.

So schedule time for yourself, pick a good, busy place where lots of people will be walking around, and start practicing!

What would you do if you were not afraid?

Remember, Only The Confident Really Live.

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