I would probably say my Approach anxiety was much worse than average, my fear was paralysing and I just couldn’t get past it. Now I have found a way to get past it slowly but surely. Taking small small steps. I’m all for faking it til you make it, but for some people they just cant get past that. So Ive created a list after much experimenting to see what set off my AA the least. After I do each one of these things for a certain time I got bored doing it all the time, that was my cue to move it up a notch.
1.Go to a Starbucks, or any coffee shop when it isn’t too busy. You’ll notice people seem to hug the windows and walls, noone wants to be the guy sitting right in the middle on their own. Sit down and notice how many people don’t actually care that you feel uncomfortable.
FRAME: Anyone looking at you is envious of your confidence.
2.Walk down the street, you can do this with your headphones in or whatever, and hold the eye contact of every girl until they look away. You can do this in bars and restaurants too.
FRAME: Remember if they hold it they are interested, if they don’t then they are still interested but don’t have the confidence to approach you.
3.Walk down the street, hold the eye contact of every girl and then say “Hi”, if they hold your eye contact pull a stupid face, stick your tongue out or something. When I started doing this the buzz was similar to what I got from approaching.
FRAME: If they don’t laugh they are shy or aren’t interesting enough for you to be socialising with, think about it.
4.After they have laughed or reacted at all to your silly face or whatever, go over/stop them and start talking to them.
FRAME: they already have a good opinion of you, you have nothing to lose, its very difficult to change a girls first impression of you.
5.Buy the PUAtraining e-book and Approach confidence CD, the book will tell you what to do next and the Approach confidence CD should be listened to on repeat at night, every other night. It strips the layers of anxiety away like an onion until you are left with a little quivering blob which you can ignore.
Good stuff. Here’s another couple I’ve tried.
- Speak to people who work in shops, cinemas, or wherever you happen to be buying something or going for entertainment. It’s not a very English thing to say more than the bare minimum to people paid to work behind the till, but if you’ve ever been in their shoes you’ll realise know not only is it not annoying, but actually brightens up your day. A great thing to make a routine.
- Phone rather than text or email. This doesn’t apply with your friends (who you’d probably do this with anyway), but with people you don’t really know but need to get in contact with, and with organizations who give you the option to email in rather than to call when you need assistance. Cold-calling enough will wear down some of that approach anxiety.
- Get a job that puts you in awkward social situations. My favourite here is to get a job as a charity fundraiser – you know, those people with clipboards who try to stop everyone in the street. Charities are always looking for volunteers, and doing the job essentially gives you a structured way to learn that getting shot down isn’t that bad (and to learn how to avoid getting shot down so often).
Just a few thoughts, hopefully they’ll help some guys!
Nice ideas. Rob that charity one is great.
Also try this:
Walk down the street- a big long shopping street like Oxford Street, on a saturday with loads of people. Let your imagination wander about things you could do in that moment.
Then do one. This first one is quite hard – with me it was touch a guy’s afro. He was freaked but the girls he was with laughed.
Then do another thing- whatever pops into your mind. Read someone’s T-shirt aloud to them.
Then do another thing- could be a cartwheel.
Keep going, by the end of the street you’ll be in that stripped onion vibe you spoke of. You’ve been singing, touching people, doing cartwheels down a busy street, after that talking to girls is easy, plus you are full of adrenaline.
Not a super-pill, bit of a quick fix, but its fun. The key is you will naturally build up in crazyness as you go. If you still feel inhibited by the end, just walk back again. I call it the zen-walk, but who gives a shit, just give it a go.
Nice post again MD
Nice ideas so far. Heres one to add…
Spend a day in a town or city you don’t know and where you don’t know the people. Before you go though, plan or make sure that when you come back home that night you’ll be going out with friends for a night out. Doing this will give you something to look forward to that night.
Go to this city and give yourself a finish time, a time when you will stop. Also say to yourself that you will approach say, 5 people in 30 minutes or something. Setting these little challenges to yourself will help immensely. However, I should say that if you set yourself challenges and don’t fulfill them- you can end up feeling really crap, so make sure the challenges are achievable.
Start of with some indirect approaches, e.g. asking the time and for directions (which, if your in a city you’ve never been to before, you will probably need anways).
Then move up a little bit, open people with cheeky comments or compliments.
And then once comfortable, open sets with your usual opener- or try new openers. Just push yourself to try new things and not care what people think. You’re in a place with people you’ll probably never see again, so don’t worry about embarassing yourself…and if it does go well, then maybe you will see them again :)
And if you have a rough day, maybe some interactions didn’t go your way then you’ve got the party that night to look forward to. I think it’s important to have something to look forward to when you get back home…also you’ll be warmed up and ready to approach that night when you go out! So there’ll be no excuses for not approaching.
Honestly, if you’re reading this and thinking ‘that a good idea’ then go out and do it. This first step of getting over approach anxiety hurts, but pushing yourself through it will be worthit.
Really, this material is good – I’m talking about the free stuff Richard puts out. The pay-for stuff is probably better, but way beyond my means, anyway the time I should have been learning this is 55 years ago. But I really enjoy reading it, and even try out some of the stuff like eye contact, which comes naturally to me. Girls where I live now are not put off by a big age difference, plus I have the advantage of being of Caucasian race among Asian people, thus naturally attracting attention.
Great ideas Megadirt, Rob, Love Plus, Richard. I should know as i’ve also naturally and independantly used bits and pieces from all the above guys’ advice and they work (and I’m sure gonna try the ones I haven’t!)
These are great tips guys, and I honestly think my approach anxiety is a case of “making a mountain out of an ant hill”, definately worth the shot. . .got nothing to lose but AA.
Yes guys, brilliant, great to see you understand what I’m rambling about, eventually you start to worry about different things because eventually you will never get blown out of a set.
-D