When I started learning how to approach women, I went out almost every day to the park near where I work.

I could feel my heart rate increase and my blood pressure rise even as I walked out the front door of my building.

I circled the park, sometimes hoping there wouldn’t be any cute girls to talk to because I knew my body would start to react.

And sometimes I did see that gorgeous girl and didn’t approach her because I had too much anxiety.

Regardless, I went out every day and didn’t quit.

I did finally approach. And with every approach, I improved.

Eventually I became very comfortable meeting women in the park. It was a good place to start.

But then I went to go meet them on a crowded subway platforms and a lot of the anxiety came back.

So I worked at that. It was a new challenge.

Once I got comfortable opening women on subway platforms, stopping women in crowded department stores would give me anxiety.

In a certain sense it was frustrating that I was still dealing with fears and anxieties.

But in another sense, in a very real sense, I had won, even though I still got anxiety.

I won because I was learning to accept the anxiety instead of trying to get rid of it. I was building a skill.

Now it is much easier to navigate new environments and unfamiliar challenges.

Even if you aren’t dealing with approach anxiety, there are still a host of other fears and challenges in this game.

Perhaps you meet women online but you still have a fear of getting sexual.

Perhaps you are too inhibited around gorgeous women to joke around, have fun and be yourself.

Of all the skills I learned with pickup, the most important has been that of learning to know and understand my own feelings.

I was learning how to manage those feelings in ways that work for me instead of against me.

Almost all of my challenges are now challenges of this realm. All game is inner game, as they say.

This may seem zen and a bit difficult to hear if you’re looking for motivation. Nobody wants to hear that their pain won’t be magically taken away.

But the original point wasn’t to take your pain away. The original point of pickup was to live your life the way you want to live your life.

The original point was to talk to the women you want to talk to and to make progress becoming socially confident.

This can be done–and must be done–regardless of the actual level of anxiety your body is feeling.

Even after 2.5 years of doing this, being with some of the most beautiful women you can imagine, having some of the most fun crazy sexual adventures possible, I still get anxiety in certain situations.

Most situations don’t give me much anxiety. But the ones that do–I yearn for those moments.

It is my challenge.

It is my excitement.

It is my last frontier.

It is in those moments I am in touch with the world, up against it, engaging it, dancing with it.

Living from moment to moment as part of the beautiful struggle.