Outcome Independence and Mood

[BarryS1]

This is an idea that’s been in my head for a couple months about mood and outcome independence. I’ve been experimenting with my mood depending on approaches and different lifestyles. I had an “ah-ha” moment about my experience, but wanted to pose the question to the boards:

How do you know when you’ve achieved an outcome-independent mindset?

I’ve been taking notes in a journal about my mood before approaching girls and afterwards. For example, during a 1 hr. day game adventure, my mood approaching the first girl would be different than after the last approach. A year ago, I would take a gamble on approaching to increase my mood - that’s why I loved it so much! Approaching girls had the ability of regulating my mood.

A couple months ago, approaching girls suddenly didn’t have that ability. I thought I was going through depression or getting stale of my environment. Almost like flipping a switch and not having the light turn on. I was consistently hitting a wall.

Here’s what I realized:

Approaching girls while gaming by myself, my mood is concrete from beginning to end. If I am sad that day, there is no girl I can approach that will make me instantly happy and vice-versa. It was a good experiment because I was a total recluse the first year of approaching and did not have many support groups. The last couple months I’ve joined different social circles and suddenly my mood would change by throwing in new variables like talking to friends. Then, I would experiment with solo-game again and the same thing happened: my mood wouldn’t change.

I wasn’t going through a rough patch, my mood did not fluctuate while approaching on a consistent basis.

That’s how it happened to me. I’d love to hear anyone else’s realizations.

 

[Drck]

That's a very looong topic...

"How do you know when you've achieved an outcome-independent mindset?"
>>>> I go out, I do my best, and I get rejected anyway. I'm still happy the same way before I met that girl. I just don't care. I don't care if I get laid with that girl or not.

But it depends on that particular girl. If she is 5-6/10 and nothing happens, I don't care. If she is 8/10 on my scale it hurts. That is just natural, we are humans with feelings and not robots, our mood naturally fluctuates up and down. I guess the only protection against getting too much hurt is abundance mentality.

I've also been among different people groups in different states and countries. As much as I don't want to admit it, I can say that my long term mood changes depending on which people surrounds me. Highly functioning people with high motivation are usually more critical of others; they have higher standards and they "judge" others more (even though they will always deny it). If you want to keep respect, you need to be more careful how you present yourself, what you say and do, which kinds of creates constraints on how you express yourself. I usually feel uptight around such people, I don't feel "free" because I have to watch what I say and do. If I don't people flip over. Oh, I can piss a lot of people off very easily, so I usually hide behind Nice Guy perception to keep the peace. It is quite challenging to get into seduction mood in such environment, people always try to beat you with intelligence, they want to prove that they are smarter than you, and at the same time many don't care about your emotions.

Less educated and less motivated people are more relaxed. They seem to be much more happy. I just "copy" the mood which makes me happier and more relaxed. My thinking changes, I am more relaxed, I can say what I want to say and nobody flips over. When I use sarcasm people laugh, no one gets pissed. No one tries to beat your IQ. My mood gets better, I feel more free, I'm more relaxed and more confident. I can hit on girls left and right and it is just fun. Such environment is more emotional, so some regulation is needed otherwise you will constantly be up and down. Seduction mood just surfaces itself.

I've also studied a lot of Buddhism. The classical teaching is, that your mood should be stable and independent on external world, which kind of makes sense, and I practiced that a lot. You learn to feel happy regardless of your external environment, but if you want to become really good at it you'd have to become a monk.

However, if you want to develop more natural vibes and connect better to people/girls, you simply have to be dependent on people around you. You have to care, you have to get involved. You need to develop empathy and emotional intelligence. This way you have a good "feel" of people/girls around you, and this way you can connect better on personal level.

So, what's better? IMO it doesn't have to be either black or white. You can mix both - find a group that makes you more happy and at the same time learn to be more independent. This way you'll get best out of those both worlds we live in...

Simply try to be happy on emotional level, screw the IQ, it is overrated. When you are more happy, more accepting and less critical/judgmental, the girl(s) feel good around you, they are more relaxed. And that is what you want, make girls associated good feelings while around you...

 

[BarryS1]

Good post Drck, made me think a lot about the types of energy to draw from people. Be independent of their rejection, but calibrate yourself to their needs.

That's a very looong topic...

"How do you know when you've achieved an outcome-independent mindset?"
>>>> I go out, I do my best, and I get rejected anyway. I'm still happy the same way before I met that girl. I just don't care. I don't care if I get laid with that girl or not.

But it depends on that particular girl. If she is 5-6/10 and nothing happens, I don't care. If she is 8/10 on my scale it hurts. That is just natural, we are humans with feelings and not robots, our mood naturally fluctuates up and down. I guess the only protection against getting too much hurt is abundance mentality.

I feel the same way with the higher-caliber girls. I recover at a slower rate after being rejected compared to a 5-6/10.

I've also studied a lot of Buddhism. The classical teaching is, that your mood should be stable and independent on external world, which kind of makes sense, and I practiced that a lot. You learn to feel happy regardless of your external environment, but if you want to become really good at it you'd have to become a monk.

However, if you want to develop more natural vibes and connect better to people/girls, you simply have to be dependent on people around you. You have to care, you have to get involved. You need to develop empathy and emotional intelligence. This way you have a good "feel" of people/girls around you, and this way you can connect better on personal level.

So, what's better? IMO it doesn't have to be either black or white. You can mix both - find a group that makes you more happy and at the same time learn to be more independent. This way you'll get best out of those both worlds we live in...

I've getting into social circle after a long break, so taking in the energy of others is new to me. I tend to stay in groups similar to my hobbies and occupation, but there are some people its hard to mesh with. For example, those successful people you just mentioned are always critical if you don't have a cookie-cutter lifestyle like they do. They always bag on me not being in a relationship nor traveled much outside the US. It can be a real buzzkill. The good thing I found is that those type of personal questions only come up at private gathering, like someone's house or at a restaurant.

I got a different impression of those high caliber people in a public setting, like a fitness or dance class. We do find detailed information about each other, but not usually the categories I mentioned (unless deep-diving a girl).

This got me to think about where to draw my energy from in social groups. I'll have to start reading Chase's articles about social-calibration. Thanks again Drck!

 

[ThrowDown]

I experience something revelating. When I place my mind on the thought of meeting women, I find myself feeling slightly nervous, until I gain momentum, then that nervousness digresses. When I place my mind on "I'm going to focus on having a great time, give love to anybody, not just women" or "just enjoy life." My mind feels at ease, and less tense, I meet more women and receive greater results.. I feel outcome independent.

However there are times In the past where I focused on getting laid, and when I focus on my goal that I feel outcome dependent if things don't go my way. Thought process of "I need to get laid, it's a MUST". It's like women sense this neediness and desperation..

So Instead of focusing on the goal, I focus on the present. Love and embrace life..oddly, my initial goal will be exceeded if I just "enjoy".