Inner Game issues, need advice

[j81]

I really hope that my situation isnt unique and that someone has been there before and can give me some kind of help or advice. Its very difficult to put my problem into words, so bear with me.

My problem is that I know what I need to do...I just cant seem to get the balls to do it. And when I try, I freeze up, dont know what to say, and look for the closest exit out of the situation. I've read the DJ bible, and countless other things, including this forum, ebooks, articles, and all that other stuff. I know I need to be confident and comfortable around women. I can come to a level of confidence in my own home, but when I get out into the field, it all goes down the toilet. So my knowledge about inner game and all that is definitely beyond that of a novice I'm just having trouble applying it.

Another issue I have is that I'm deathly afraid of the approach, I mean, deathly afraid of it. Even approaching guys to meet them (say at a new job) is scary as hell for me. Is it rejection? No I dont think so, I've been rejected before, and its not that bad and I feel I can deal with it. I have no idea what I'm afraid of. It could be validation, but I dont feel like I need to be validated so I dont know why that'd be it and I dont put girls on that pedestal anymore either...at least I dont think I do. The only girls I can talk to and flirt with are ones I already know, ones that come and talk to me first, or girls I work with etc. Obviously this GREATLY reduces my chances of success, and practice on improving.

I've also noticed that inner voice that speaks to me...is very negative, and harsh. You wouldnt believe some of the BS that my mind comes up with. The weird thing is is that I know its all a bunch of BS, but in the moment, I completely believe it. I know that sounds crazy, but I'm very aware of whats going on, I just dont know how to fix it. Thats whats so frustrating.

Now I'm a good looking guy, and the people who know me well think I'm cool and funny. So I shouldnt be having these issues, however being that same cool and funny guy infront of women isnt working out for me either. That guy seems to want to stay in hiding when theres a hottie around, even though I know thats whats going to do it for me.

So basically...I dont know how to go about making myself more comfortable and more confident around women, and shutting up the negative thoughts that I have in the heat of the moment. What really sucks is I'm 27, and feel that this is high school type stuff, and its something I should of taken care of a long time ago. I'm not getting any younger :nervous:

It just doesnt make any sense to me, because I'm aware of everything, I just cant seem to improve my inner game regardless. Any thoughts, ideas, theories, advice, help, anything positive would be much appreciated.

 

[Interceptor]

It appears that reading doesn't seem to be helping you.
That said, you must understand that you know that the answer toyour dilemma is ACTION.
You must take action.

I suggest four things:


EFT -Emotional Freedom Technique
And look at this site. Read up on it as much as you can, and do the EFT Road Map.

http://www.innergametapping.com/


Meditation/Hypnosis
Listen to all the media samples. And begin to replace the negative self talk with positive, empowering self talk:

http://www.theinnergameguru.com/

http://www.hypnotica.org/privatedownloads.htm


Finally, I would definitely suggest physical movement.
Physical movemnt release old ,trapped negative patterns in the body.
Things like body building, martial arts, yoga, tai chi, qi gong, and also Reiki attunments are extremely powerful at building physical confidence, and intimate knowledge of your mind and body and emotions.


You need action, not words.

 

[thedeparted]

Look into cognitive-bahavioral treatment for social anxiety. There is a book, "Get out of your head and into your life" or something like that, which will help. And also do the bootcamp stuff. Workong on EC, cold approaches, etc.

Only practice will help you now.

 

[Technical1]

surprise surprise... everybody on these boards is struggling with more or less the exact same problem set!! Here is a response I wrote to someone else yesterday:

j81,

You'll be fine man, you're already on your way.

Here's what has worked for me over the last 3.5 months:

1. No internet porn/masturbation. Tremendously important because you feel like slime afterwards (I do).

2. Daily affirmations. Start talking to yourself positively every day, even if it seems scripted at first.

3. Social exposure. Basically chatting up strangers, this will reconvince you that you actually are a social person.

4. Better eating/fitness habits. Taking care of yourself (i.e. quitting smoking, eating better) will make you happier and let you sleep better.

5. Eject any and all people from your life who bring you down and sabotage you with negativity.

6. Dont try online dating and dont try past girlfriends, these are crutches and bad ideas. Generate new possibilities from scratch.

7. Ask yourself if you're really doing what you like in life (hobby-wise, work-wise) and try to get more on track shaping your own life.

good luck

 

[j81]

Interceptor, I was really hoping you would respond to my post. Thanks...I'm going to try all that stuff. I've been meaning to work out more anyways.

5. Eject any and all people from your life who bring you down and sabotage you with negativity.

Its funny you say this, because I've been doing exactly that. I've been trying my hardest to stay positive as much as I can, and its hard to do when theres people constantly bringing you down. This has pretty much been happening for as long as I can remember. My so called "friends" in high school used to convince me that the girls that gave me any kinds of IOIs or attention were just "playing with me" or just kidding, that they werent really interested.

Also, the people who doubt my success (and theres enough of them) at ANYTHING are pretty much excluded entirely from my social life.

 

[Interceptor]

j,
you need to build new experiences to replace the old ones.

You need expereinces , not more words to read.

This means taking a chance, and going out into the real world.

Remember, all life is just an experiment. It's not if you make mistakes, it's how you react to them. And the only thing that matters is how YOU React to them, not what others think of it.

If you do not take action, you kill your psyche a little each day.
And you imprint more negative patterns into your neurology.
Patterns that serve you no purpose, and are difficult to remove.

Build self esteem.

Work on high character.

Start positive self talk.

Be active in some way.

Give back value when you can.

Be independent of external validation.

Look at life as your experiment, and the only thing that truly matters is if you are happy or not.

You can't be 'responsible' for others' happiness or feelings.
Be they negative or positive.
Let go of feeling repsonsible.
Let go of trying to impress or look cool in front of others.
Dont look for anyones' approval.

Dont go looking for that validation.
Its up to you, not them.
Dont hold others responsible for your happiness and well being.
In addition, dont let the negative comments and attitudes toward you get to you anymore.
People who do that are insecure and have low self esteem, they come from a place of lack.
And are truly miserable people themselves
You cannot give so much importance to those people, or credence.

Let go of all that.

Go out and live. Even if it means you will make mistakes.

It's better to do a little bit of something , than being an expert at sitting home alone with a pc all the time too afraid to go out and with nothing to share or do.
You want to be an expert couch potato?

 

[ZenGodMod]

You've now seen how hard it is to embed the DJ mentality into you inner self.

The old you is fighting to survive. Fight back, keep at it till the fight is won. It can take some time, but it is worth it.

ACT now!

 

[AlekNovy]

Apologies with everyone who posted here, but I agree with neither one. Not because they're bad suggestions, but because i've been there.

The last thing you need my friend is to complicate it further and concentrate on 1748 other things to "fix".

I was at the exact place you talk of. Heck, I remember being here on sosuave 5 years ago, at the exact same place and just freaking out, thinking something must be wrong with me. And I just couldn't like turn any of this into action.

What would I do if I could go back 5 years and give myself THE MAP. Ok, here we go.

FORGET EVERYTHING you know. Forget everything you have read and have tried here. Just forget it for a moment. You are in what some like to call "paralysis analysis". Not quite what you have, but close to it.

You want to break things down the the SIMPLEST possible chunk, and just do the most effective simplest *action* that you *can* do, right now.

So what would it be in this case?

Mastering approaching.

So why haven't you mastered approaching yet? You're probably doing what a lot of newbs do (and I did back then), which is always trying to do THE APPROACH.

Let me backtrack a bit first. Let's define an approach first. An approach is "the act of moving your body within hearing distance of another person and saying something". THAT's IT.

It doesn't mean they respond.

It doesn't mean the react well.

It doesn't mean you have good delivery (in fact, expect to suck at first).

It doesn't mean they want to screw your brains out.

It doesn't even (this is important) mean that it's actually a girl you like or would date, it doesn't even have to be a female.

It doesn't have to be an opener, if you say anything to anyone (whom you don't know), it's considered an approach.

Why is this important.

Because this is the reason why THE APPROACH, screws guys up. A guy who hasn't approached a single girl in his life, wants to beat AA by finding a way to do THE APPROACH.

And THE APPROACH is the one where you walk up to the hottest girl ever, while she is in a super hard context (like in a bar surrounded by "defenders" or while walking down the street looking pissed off)... and not only that, but you know EXACTLY what to say, and then have this amazing conversation and have it lead to somewhere.

Screw that. That's pua marketing.

That's like going into the gym, and the first day trying to start by lifting 380 pound dumb-bells.

So where do you start?

Action.

Just do action. Do the 3-approaches-per-day mission. Forget even the DJ-bootcamp. Heck, i myself couldn't do even the first mission of it for like several years.

Just do 3-approaches-per-day mission.

But wait, how can you do that if you have AA?

Remember the definition of an approach?

If you go out right now and ask three old guys for the time, guess what, you have done the mission succesfully, and guess what? Success breeds success.

Just keep doing it, and overtime you will be able to approach better and better and do harder and harder approaches (progress to ugly girls, then progress to semi-ok girls, then hot girls, then go to harder openers etc...)

Simplify the method

Forget what any of the "gurus" or "article-writers" say. You don't need to know any of this stuff to begin. In fact, forget all of it. Here's the simplest method in the world.

Walk up to girl -> Give Compliment -> ask a few boring everyday questions (Small talk like where do you study, what do you do) -> Ask her out

That's IT.

And here's a secret they won't have told you. If you do all this (and forget al techniques and everything you have learned), and just do everything else intuitively (i.e. normal), you will still get 50% as good results as if you knew all this pick up and don juan stuff.

If you got 5 girls with the above super-simple system, then maybe you'd have gotten 9-10 with the best techniques, complex systems out there.

Gotta start somewhere.

If you got any questions feel free to ask

p.s.

Just go out today and do it. Do *whatever*, as long as it's 3 of those whatevers. Let me know how it goes.

 

[Interceptor]

It appears that reading doesn't seem to be helping you.
That said, you must understand that you know that the answer to your dilemma is ACTION.
You must take action.

You need action, not words.

AlekNovy wrote:

but I agree with neither one

So where do you start?

Action.

LOL.

:crackup:

 

[AlekNovy]

AlekNovy wrote:

LOL.

:crackup:

You managed to miss what he said right after saying action

I suggest four things:


EFT -Emotional Freedom Technique
And look at this site. Read up on it as much as you can, and do the EFT Road Map.

http://www.innergametapping.com/


Meditation/Hypnosis
Listen to all the media samples. And begin to replace the negative self talk with positive, empowering self talk:

http://www.theinnergameguru.com/

http://www.hypnotica.org/privatedownloads.htm

My definition of action is going out there and doing stuff, with real life people, not sitting at home doing affirmations and visualizations about doing it.

"Inner game techniques" are just a crutch to justify not taking action and concentrating on THE APPROACH. Instead of going out there and talking to the fatty, or the old guy... You're sitting at home visualizing walking up to the super 10 and making out with her in less than 3 minutes. Mental masturbation is all it is. Unless you're tapping your forehead.. in which case it would classify as mind-fvcking yourself I guess.

Talking to a fatty today will bring you much closer to banging a 10, than doing affirmations ever will. Just go out and do *action*. As in real action.

I also disagree with all the lifestyle changes mentioned by all the posters in the thread. Go to the gym, find hobbies, yadda yadda, yadda. Been there, done that. When you're in the situation of the OP, your pain is not meeting people, not your lifestyle. So getting all those things, just further alleviates your pain, as now you're a loner with a bunch of cool hobbies, but still a loner.

First do action, then "improve lifestyle", but only if you still want it.

All those thoughts only come out inaction. It's amazing the kinds of thoughts and negativity we will come up with when we're passive.

 

[j81]

Thanks guys. Theres some good responses here.

Anyways, I'm glad everyone gets what I'm going through. The best way I can describe it is that theres 2 sides of my mind, almost sounds like im bipolar by the description of it. But one part of me (the new me) is a lot of self confidence that I can go out and get lots of women very easily. The other part...well you know what that guy is up to. Its the "other" part that holds all the strength because the part where I believe in myself has just seeded and needs time to grow....and some experience.

Its just extremely hard to stop, and ignore the negative self talk when I've been doing it my entire life and I'm just so used to doing it. Its as automatic as breathing. But I'm going to try my best to move in the right direction, with baby steps I'm sure.

 

[Mr.Positive]

Its just extremely hard to stop, and ignore the negative self talk when I've been doing it my entire life and I'm just so used to doing it. Its as automatic as breathing. But I'm going to try my best to move in the right direction, with baby steps I'm sure.

I've found, from my past experiences, it's really easy to over analyze things. It's really easy to think that everyone notices every little thing that we do, and then disects it to the umpteenth degree.

j81, sometimes you just gotta say fvck it. Fvck it. Who gives one sh!t what anyone else thinks.

I know where you are coming from. I've been there. I'll tell ya this though, if you can work the negativity, you'll see that there's a whole world out there waiting for you to conquer.

It took me awhile, but I realized, that I could accomplish whatever I wanted to in my life. I just had to make the decision to own it, own my life. I did that, I made that decision.

That's what you need to do. Own your life. It's all up to you man, what are you going to do?

I hope you realize the truth. YOU can do, and accomplish, anything you want to. You just have to f*cking do it.

 

[SinJester]

I actually agree with both Interceptor and AlekNovy. It's not just 'inner game' taht your lacking, its also experiance. Experiance, as long as it's a positive experiance or accompanied by a lack of negative thoughts translates directly into inner game. Follow the advice of both.

I also disagree with all the lifestyle changes mentioned by all the posters in the thread. Go to the gym, find hobbies, yadda yadda, yadda. Been there, done that. When you're in the situation of the OP, your pain is not meeting people, not your lifestyle. So getting all those things, just further alleviates your pain, as now you're a loner with a bunch of cool hobbies, but still a loner.

This is so true. I've been there and done that. Your the first person I've seen that relates to that. Doing that is great but it doesn't translate into social skills. It just makes you a more interesting person. All you have to do to get over fear of approaching is to approach.

The thing is 'inner game' stuff like sitting in your room and whatever does help because it assists you with dealing with negative thoughts and enables you to turn experiance into real inner game.

I'm trying The Science Of Enlightment by Shinzen Young now. Great stuff, i reccomended trying some meditation stuff. But don't let that hold you back from going out and approaching and whatever, and don't think "I have to wait till my inner game is perfect before I approach". Experiance will help you msot and quickest. You might relate to my thread about why: http://www.sosuave.net/forum/showthread.php?t=142685

 

[Paprika]

AlekNovy, that was a great post. Very refreshing. It cut right through all the bullsh*t.

The idea of simply talking (or even just asking the time) to three people per day is simple, solid advice.

I also like the idea of not "fixing" yourself. I know we're all trying to improve ourselves, and I can appreciate that. But I've been thinking about this a lot lately. When we focus so hard on self-improvement, there's an underlying implication that we are somehow faulty and that something about us needs to be "fixed". I think that creates an unnecessary struggle.

Guys, I'm guessing that there's nothing really that seriously wrong with 99% of us here. Just RELAX. ***Be more self-accepting.*** For example, if you've been feeling shy, acknowledge it and realize that it does not define you. Maybe you grew up in a sh*tty family environment. Maybe you're stressed out or dissatisfied with work/school/whatever and it's making it so you don't want to talk to people. Does that mean you ARE shy? No, it just means that at this particular juncture of your life you have some circumstances that aren't 100% optimal. Take small amounts of action on a daily basis. You'll be fine.

Also, don't do things to "improve" yourself. Do things simply because you enjoy doing them. I firmly believe the rest will follow naturally.

 

[SinJester]

I also like the idea of not "fixing" yourself. I know we're all trying to improve ourselves, and I can appreciate that. But I've been thinking about this a lot lately. When we focus so hard on self-improvement, there's an underlying implication that we are somehow faulty and that something about us needs to be "fixed". I think that creates an unnecessary struggle.

Guys, I'm guessing that there's nothing really that seriously wrong with 99% of us here. Just RELAX. ***Be more self-accepting.*** For example, if you've been feeling shy, acknowledge it and realize that it does not define you. Maybe you grew up in a sh*tty family environment. Maybe you're stressed out or dissatisfied with work/school/whatever and it's making it so you don't want to talk to people. Does that mean you ARE shy? No, it just means that at this particular juncture of your life you have some circumstances that aren't 100% optimal. Take small amounts of action on a daily basis. You'll be fine.

Also, don't do things to "improve" yourself. Do things simply because you enjoy doing them. I firmly believe the rest will follow naturally.

You can bypass all that by seperating yourself from your life's situation. I'm happy with the way I am now and completely accept myself in the moment, but I still want to work on 'improving' myself. By improving I just mean incorperating traits that I find desireable. Nothing wrong with that. Our true selves have always been perfect, it is just our life situation that we can improve just because we want to enjoy it. Not to say that we aren't enjoying the now. Semantics

 

[AlekNovy]

Thanks guys. Theres some good responses here.

Anyways, I'm glad everyone gets what I'm going through. The best way I can describe it is that theres 2 sides of my mind, almost sounds like im bipolar by the description of it. But one part of me (the new me) is a lot of self confidence that I can go out and get lots of women very easily. The other part...well you know what that guy is up to. Its the "other" part that holds all the strength because the part where I believe in myself has just seeded and needs time to grow....and some experience.

Its just extremely hard to stop, and ignore the negative self talk when I've been doing it my entire life and I'm just so used to doing it. Its as automatic as breathing. But I'm going to try my best to move in the right direction, with \baby steps I'm sure.

It's nice that you liked the responses, but what did you put into action.

"Its just extremely hard to stop, and ignore the negative self talk when I've been doing it my entire life and I'm just so used to doing it. "

Just do it. Stop saying how "it", the collective of all problems you might or might not have is hard to get rid of and bla bla bla bla.

Just pick ONE thing to work on today, and get cracking. What did you pick, and what did you work on today? Start a log, and write what you're doing. Even if it's so much as journalling for 2 minutes a day. ACTION gets you out of a rut. Not thinking. Thinking messes things up and creates knots in your head.

And again, remember, before your mind manages to overthink it... action does not mean something super-spectacular. In fact, one of the ways your brain will try to stop you from taking action is by imaging that in order to take action to must start with something super-spectacular... so since you're not ready for such action yet, might as well just wait for a better time.

Remember ANYTHING is an action. Just sitting down and writing down your thoughts for 2 minutes is an action. Don't wait for the perfect moment. Do it now.

Feel free to ask questions and clarifications too though.

AlekNovy, that was a great post. Very refreshing. It cut right through all the bullsh*t.

The idea of simply talking (or even just asking the time) to three people per day is simple, solid advice.

I also like the idea of not "fixing" yourself. I know we're all trying to improve ourselves, and I can appreciate that. But I've been thinking about this a lot lately. When we focus so hard on self-improvement, there's an underlying implication that we are somehow faulty and that something about us needs to be "fixed". I think that creates an unnecessary struggle.

Guys, I'm guessing that there's nothing really that seriously wrong with 99% of us here. Just RELAX. ***Be more self-accepting.*** For example, if you've been feeling shy, acknowledge it and realize that it does not define you. Maybe you grew up in a sh*tty family environment. Maybe you're stressed out or dissatisfied with work/school/whatever and it's making it so you don't want to talk to people. Does that mean you ARE shy? No, it just means that at this particular juncture of your life you have some circumstances that aren't 100% optimal. Take small amounts of action on a daily basis. You'll be fine.

Also, don't do things to "improve" yourself. Do things simply because you enjoy doing them. I firmly believe the rest will follow naturally.

Thanks man, appreciate it

And I whole-heartedly agree. Self-acceptance is just SO KEY that... it's not even funny. It's like "everything". It really is. I like how you explained it, especially this part:

"Does that mean you ARE shy? No, it just means that at this particular juncture of your life you have some circumstances that aren't 100% optimal. Take small amounts of action on a daily basis. You'll be fine."

It's such an irony. The moment you accept something is fine, is the moment you transcend it. It's like I used to read texts about self-acceptance and not get it.

But let's try and explain it in a better way. It's like, let me give you an example.

Let's say you're a part of some salsa club, and for some reason, whenever you go there, you end being all shy and ackward and you have NO IDEA why, and you've been trying to "solve" it for months.

If you actually and genuinelly sit down and think of all the reasons why it doesn't matter. If you actually sit down and list all the reasons (in your head) for why it's ok if you are shy, ackward and what not, since you're such a (good attributes here)... And if you genuinelly look into how in the grand scheme of things it's ok, and it's fine, and you don't care if it takes 2 months, or 6 months or 10 years. It's all fine, you don't care if you never solve it. It's ok.

What will happen the very next day you walk into that club is that you will find yourself acting charismatic and charming and... you won't even remeber until afterwards that this is something new! You will astonish yourself.

That's the power of self-acceptance.

 

[j81]

Ive been trying to talk to 3 people a day.

I have a new job, and dont know all the people there yet, and I'm going to at some point so I figure now is a better time than any to meet some of the people there. Im going to be going back to school, and this job isnt something important where I feel that I need to not hit on women at work (its replaceable), hell everyone there does it there anyways. But I'm not at that point yet so I'm not going to worry about picking up women.

I talked to 2 HB9s there today, and a guy. Its not that I was focusing on talking to the hot girls so much but rather that they were THERE and I thought what the hell.

The conversations were short, just small talk several times throughout the night. The one girl even kind of kept coming around and seemed like she felt comfortable around me. She told me she loves whipped cream....hmmm...okay. The other one went back to pretending I wasnt there, lol. The guy I talked to was very easy to talk to because he was just cool and laid back. Thats the type of person I want to become, someone whos easy going that makes everyone else comfortable.

Anyways, while I didnt feel 100% comfortable with the girls I tried my best to look that way. Infact, the entire time, I felt awkward.

But I think you're right. Im probably just thinking about it too much.

 

[sosilky]

check this out http://www.sosuave.net/forum/showthread.php?t=143031

 

[MacAvoy]

I talked to 2 HB9s there today, and a guy. Its not that I was focusing on talking to the hot girls so much but rather that they were THERE and I thought what the hell.

...

But I think you're right. Im probably just thinking about it too much.

Well it looks like you are on the right track my friend. I really like Alex's advice as well. Keep trying to talk to 3 people a day, after a few weeks, you'll get a lot more comfortable with that. Then you can start a new goal that is outside your new comfort zone.

Its a slow process but like anything else, you have to put in the work to make it worthwhile.

Congrats on making it this far and keep it up.

 

[schttrj]

ok, now heres what i think.... u have a huge ego and dont want to let it down.

u are not looking for validation from others and u r so validated from within that u dont want anybody else to destroy it.

this is the only thing that good looking ppl dont actually approach even if they know they might be successful or that they have got good chance.

u know how i know this, because i face the same situation, i just cant get over my ego or arrogance adn i cant let anyone hurt that.

anyone got ideas how to go about it?