how to beat f$$king crippling approach anxiety

[disciple99]

I have read every post available on GC to beat approach anxiety but after my first experience of cold approaching and getting rejected by a girl lower in looks & personality department I am not being able to say hi to complete 4th day of newbie task I hear her words "who are you" with that crazy half smile she gave me on my first day of cold approaching.
today I was in mall around 5 hours girls looking at me sitting alone and I could not bring myself to say hi what the fu&k how do I beat this cripplingl approach anxiety.
I have read everything on the topic on GC and on first day I beat it easily but now I couldn't bring myself to say hi.
I Missed two beautiful Nepali girl with whom I could have a beautiful conversation.
show me the way please.
yours
disciple99

 

[Mr.Rob]

In my opinion it really just comes down to courage.

Courage and willingness to sacrifice your identity and ego to be crushed and then having the faith that you will rebuild it much stronger afterwards.

No amount of information you take in will give you the courage to go do the thing you are afraid of doing. The only thing articles on AA are good for is reframing the situation in your head so it's not as big a deal when you do inevitably get rejected.

If you really do not have the courage to go approach a girl sitting down and even just ask for the time or give her a compliment and peace out I would suggest doing social moves that require less courage such as giving an old lady a compliment, asking a hired gun something personal, or clapping in public for no apparent reason.

Learn how to deal with social pressure. That's all approach anxiety is, is an inability/unwillingness to deal and handle social pressure. Slowly immerse yourself in increasingly higher social pressure situations until you have enough courage to confront your fear of talking to women.

Courage is a muscle. If you exercise it regularly it will grow and become stronger.

Good luck.

-Rob

 

[HellAtlantic]

I blame Hollywood for this. It's just make believe, all those scenes where the guy approaches the girl and she makes fun of him and then everyone laughs at the guy. That's what makes a guy nervous to approach, fear of humiliation. One thing you need to realize is in reality what actually happens is the girl is flattered no matter what - whether the attraction is mutual or not they're all flattered. Girls are so insecure that any validation they get from a guy, any attention, is so valuable to them that making fun of you is the last thing they want to do. 95% of the time if they aren't feeling you they'll let you down easy. But you aren't going to be made fun of.

Now the hard part is if you're approaching 9s and 10s, they can sniff fear more easily and might, in extreme night game situations, make a show out of you. But if you have approach anxiety you aren't going to be going up to 9s and 10s in a club anyway just yet so no worries. Your average 5, 6 or 7 is *not* going to make fun of you. So the moral is if you aren't going to be made fun of and will most surely be let down easy if they don't like you then you have nothing to lose by saying "hi" and taking it from there.

This advice alone isnt going to take away your approach anxiety but what you want is to remove the "crippling" part. Truth be told we all wanna be liked and no one wants to be rejected but that comes with putting yourself out there and taking a risk.

 

[Richard]

You have two choices; decide to beat it, or let it destroy you.

Identify why you have it in the first place and then approach anyway with that fear in mind.

For me, I had and depending on the situation still have anxiety due to my fear of being negatively judged. But, I'm also aware that the fear is irrational and that helps me to understand the situation and respond accordingly.

Or, you can go another route. Slowly increase the amount of tension you choose to expose yourself to until you can approach. So, if you feel nervous with women, walk around and just hold eye contact with them until you can handle that tension (this expands your comfort zone as well), and then try just saying "Hey" or asking them for the time (again, you're increasing the amount of tension you can handle), and eventually you're able to approach.

The difference between leaders and others is the amount of tension they can handle. A fortune 500 CEO, or a President is able to handle a lot of tension in their lives and would have no problem approaching women because of it. Regular people are never exposed to the tension they are exposed to and thus can't naturally (usually) do what a President or CEO does.

What forcing yourself to approach does is it forces you to expand your comfort zone immediately and swiftly. You're throwing yourself in the water and teaching yourself to swim which is quite effective for some people (myself included).

Got it?

-Richard

 

[Bboy100]

I was considering writing up a post about this a few days ago. But it got waay too long. Even by my standards. Basically, I watched a 45 min video from a different company explaining the way AA works, and how to beat it. Long of the short of it is:
In the moment that you're trying to approach, you will not change your mind because your body is in fight, flight of freeze mode. when in this mode, the body will do whatever it usually does in the situation its faced with (so if in the past, you've ran into a mountain lion and ran away, you're likely to repeat that pattern if you see another one. Similarly, When you see a cute girl, your usual response is to do nothing, ergo you will continue to do nothing). Understand that the brain has only one hormone to produce negative emotions- cortisol. As such, there's no difference to the brain between fighting a tiger, talking to a cute girl, and worrying about a school or work project.

Anyways...I could ramble on about cortisol and how it affects the body, but as I said before, that would take forever. Instead, here are two actionable steps to get over AA:
1. When you're out meeting girls, make up your mind to approach the NEXT CUTE GIRL YOU SEE. Not A cute girl. THE NEXT CUTE GIRL. This is an important distinction because the former has a good chance of bypassing the part of the fight or flight mechanism involved in the decision not to approach, the latter does not.
2. Give a friend something valuable (say, a large sum of money or an item of meaning to you), and don't let him give it back to you till you've completed your desired number approaches for the outing. - This is actually using cortisol in your favor (again...too long to explain how and what the exact mechanisms are, but trust me, this WILL motivate you like nothing else).


Feel free to ask more questions. I can fill in more details if you're confused or would simply like to know more.

Also imo, the newbie assignment's jump from day 3 to day 4 might be a little too much. I know it definitely was for me. Feel free to repeat day 3 as many times as you feel necessary to feel comfortable moving onto day 4.