Excuses ARE Approach Anxiety

It’s amazing. It never fails.

You get in front of a person whom you are madly attracted to, and your body locks up. Your brain is in prison, frozen with nothing good to say or do.

Maybe you’ll think of something brilliant ten minutes after you walk away from her. But while you’re in it, your mouth was glued shut.

Your brain? Shut off.

All those brilliant thoughts and ideas? Vaporize into the thin air.

But why is it, that when you’re walking around outside, you see an attractive woman, all of a sudden there are 1001 excuses as to why you shouldn’t approach her?

Your brain is an EXCUSE FACTORY. When previously, your mind was blank, all of a sudden your mind becomes BRILLIANTLY ADEPT at telling you why you shouldn’t talk to this girl.

This place is too high energy.
There are too many people walking by.
It’ll weird her out, she’ll think I’m a weirdo.
This place is too low energy.
There’s not enough people around.
She’ll think I’m creepy and she’ll get scared.

I’ve seen it in my clients. People become BRILLIANT when it comes to thinking up excuses.

A recent client of mine had trouble just simply asking for directions. He said it felt like he was lying because he already knew where he was going.

There is always an excuse. Those excuses are your approach anxiety.

Granted, you want to be wise. You’re not just blindly running into the most logistically difficult situation.

For example, you might not want to approach a mother of three coming down an escalator while you’re going up, she’s wearing headphones and talking on the phone and just found out her father died and she bursts into tears.

But how do you tell the difference between true logistical issues and just lame excuses your brain makes up?

There’s not always an easy way to tell the difference between a legitimate reason why you shouldn’t meet a woman and your brain making up lame excuses.

She just put on her headphones, I can tell she doesn’t want me to approach her.
She looks angry.
She looks like she’s in a rush.
She’s too hot.
She’s not hot enough.
She’s not my type.

It’s good to be aware. But 9 out of 10 times, it’s just your approach anxiety speaking. How do I know?

Try this.

Just walk up to her and ask for directions. How difficult is that? If it is difficult, it’s worth doing just that with five girls every day. See how comfortable you can get with that.

What about doing a “drive by” and delivering a compliment to a girl and walking away. How difficult is that?

You could go up to a girl and say “Hey I was just walking by and I had to say you are unbelievably cute. Have a great day!” Difficult? It’s worth doing that once or twice a day, just to do it.

By going out and talking to attractive girls you don’t know every day, you begin to have less excuses as to why you shouldn’t approach her. You get used to seeing smiles on girls faces when you go up to them and talk to them. You learn to expect it. THAT’S confidence.

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posted in Acceptance