Perfectionism.

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sundleboro
Posts: 143 | Thanks: 64
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2021 10:45 am
Name: Bill
Goal: Social freedom
Age: 26
Motto: The key to life is progressive overload

Sun Nov 27, 2022 5:38 am

I did the Approach Anxiety program last year to great success. I was doing it with @Toast and @Manganiello during covid and we all completed it. Unlike them, though, I haven't had such a good go at it afterwards. I've been on only a single date from cold approach, and after it didn't go well, I just stopped trying.

I need some advice. Problems that I have:

* Perfectionism (worked well for me until now)
* Major insecurity about my looks as a man (can't even bring myself to make an OLD profile)
* Fear of holding a conversation for more than 10 seconds (including with guys)

The AA program was great because it gave me structure and a light at the end of the tunnel. "If I do this program perfectly, do all the challenges (I did), I'll be superman." But it's over and I didn't reach the light. I've read basically every book and blog post and article about all this, but none of it "sticks". How do you say "help" in a less needy way? I need some advice
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Manly Cockfellow
Posts: 449 | Thanks: 358
Joined: Sun Jan 09, 2022 8:14 pm
Goal: Become the men I fear
Age: 37
Motto: Mk no smll plans; thy hv no pwr to stir mens blood

Mon Nov 28, 2022 4:54 pm

Hey @sundleboro sounds like you're being held back by two extremely common problems:

1) Unrealistically high expectations for how quickly and dramatically self-improvement will change your life

2) Anxiety that's been magnified by avoidance


Luckily, there are effective solutions to both of these problems:

1) A reset of your expectations so that they are more in line with reality.

It's actually true that self-improvement can quickly and dramatically sky-rocket your results with women, BUT ONLY IF YOU ARE RIGHT ON THE CUSP OF GREATNESS WHEN YOU START IMPROVING, so that it bumps you over the line and into that elite category.

Very few men are at this point when they start, but we mistakenly read the results of men who are and we think "wow, that was quick... I can have an elite sex-life in no time".

For most of us (myself included), this is simply not the case. I'm not saying you can't get there, I'm just saying it's gonna be a several-year journey for most of us.

And this a very good thing, because the harder it is and the longer it takes to get to the top, the less competition there will be and the more we'll stand out when we get there.


2) By far the most effective strategy to combat anxiety is exposure therapy.

Exposure therapy is simply exposing yourself to as large a portion of the source of your fear as you can stand, until it bores you, and then doing the same thing with more and more direct versions of the source of your fear until you are able to face the source of fear itself.

It seems like your major fears are that your looks and your ability to hold a conversation are inadequate.

Obviously it's probably too much to ask you to jump straight into trying to have a flirty 10 minute conversation with the first attractive women you see when you leave your house, but what is a smaller portion of those fears that you could try to take on?

Could you call one of the guys on these forums that you don't know and have a conversation with them (I'd be happy to talk to you)?

Could you go and get coffee from a busy coffee shop near you and ask the barista or someone in line next to you how their day is going, where they're from, if they are excited about the holidays, what they're plans are for Christmas, etc while you two wait for your order?

Could you put up an OLD profile with pictures of someone who looks similar to you, but isn't you?

Could you call some family, friends, colleagues and ask them for feedback on your looks, or even make a post asking asking the same thing on theses forums?

These are just examples off the top of my head. Try to come up with some on your own, and before you try them give yourself a little boost of confidence by spending a few minutes thinking of things you're grateful for, and slowly replaying in your mind times you have had good conversations and times people have told you you are or treated you like an attractive man.


Sounds like you've already done the AA program, which is really just exposure therapy for social anxiety, but it also sound like you had unrealistic exceptions for how easy things would feel and be after completing it:
sundleboro wrote:
Sun Nov 27, 2022 5:38 am
If I do this program perfectly, do all the challenges (I did), I'll be superman."
which made you lose hope and feel like you failed.

Let me be clear, YOU WILL PROBABLY NEVER STOP FEELING ANXIOUS, but you can show yourself that you're attractive and capable of meaningful and rewarding social interactions DESPITE your anxiety, because it's not about getting rid of your anxiety, it's about showing yourself that you're tough and capable and attractive enough to have good social interactions in spite of it.

Hell, you can even admit to being nervous, which most people will find charmingly vulnerable and extremely relatable.


One of these days I'll write up a little post about my own journey conquering social anxiety, but for now I'll just say I used exposure therapy to go from being afraid to even leave the house and feeling like I looked like a kid and a creep, to feeling like one of the more attractive people most places I go, being fairly comfortable talking to strangers and sometimes even enjoying being the life of the party.

But I didn't do it quickly.

In fact, I didn't ever stop doing it.

It's become a habit, like mindfulness, that I practice every day.

In the end exposure therapy is exactly the same as mindfulness, because you'll never stop mind-wandering and you'll never stop anxiety.

But you can build your mindfulness and courage by practicing both every day for the rest of your life.

And who's to say you can't become superman after a lifetime of acting like him :)
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Manganiello
Posts: 1710 | Thanks: 2021
Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:25 am
Name: Brandon
Goal: Career Launch
Age: 33
Motto: Embrace your Darkside
Location: Seoul

Thu Dec 01, 2022 7:32 am

sundleboro wrote:
Sun Nov 27, 2022 5:38 am
* Perfectionism (worked well for me until now)
* Major insecurity about my looks as a man (can't even bring myself to make an OLD profile)
* Fear of holding a conversation for more than 10 seconds (including with guys
Hey man.

Well...

A lot I can say on all of these.

1) go read the persuit of perfect by Tal Ben Shahar. Pretty much mandatory you do that. Perfection is good because it makes you try harder.

But like, when you're not trying because your not ready. That's entirely different. Perfection is actually the worst and lowest standard you can have for yourself because you're not doing shit.


You have to ask yourself. Is perfectionism in this specific circumstance making you take more action or less?

Because what can happen is you will have a set of ideal conditions that must be met before you start something... And then those ideal conditions are so unrealistic to meet you actually never start. Because you're trying to achieve something impossible before you even start. So you end up procrastinating for eternity. Which sounds like you're doing here.

You need to understand done is better than perfect.

And that 365 days of imperfect progress is better than 365 days of perfect preparation.






2) You never get passed insecurity. You just live with it. And eventually it goes away. I didn't feel good enough to go online either tbh. And I was legitimately surprised when it worked, cuz I thought it might not. And tbh I was scared that if it didn't work, my 'failure' would mean something particularly bad about me. But the risk was worth it.





3) so... The AA program actually has short comings. Its not a cure all like it's been pseudo sold as. It gets you to walk up to girls. But there's still shit you have to work through. Holding conversations, coming from a good confident frame, vibe, etc. And all of that takes deep inner work. Specifically about yourself and how you measure up to the girl your talking to. If it's appropriate to talk to her, etc. That doesn't just get fixed by blind reps of approaches. You need to look deep and reframe your view of yourself and the girls around you. And I'm saying that as an imperfect person who has work to do here to. But this is advice I got from much wiser, and much more successful person. So I'm just relating info on this one.



---

I know you speak highly of me and @Toast , but honestly. I'm not perfect and there's still lots of stuff I need to work on. Nobody has the perfect interuption-free journey to success.

Everybody fucks up somewhere at sometime. The only people who don't aren't actually trying.

Big ambitions means coming short a lot. And you just learn from it.

You need to seperate yourself from what actual physical literal problems youre having, from the story about what it says about you.

Its like you have a real problem that needs to be addressed that's one thing. And then the disempowering assessment about yourself that's the other thing.

Truth is failure says nothing about you, besides what you make of it.

And as much as I'm saying that. That is not a ticket to do nothing. Its not a feel good statement. You might feel better after words of encouragement but you still have work to do.

My point is that failure doesn't mean anything about you, it just means you have more work to do.







End of day man... it sounds like you've been in the stands for too long. Get in the arena and get some mud on yourself.


Also, you can always message us on telegram. I know you know that. But you don't need a good excuse to talk to us or need some crazy cool update. Just reach out fool!
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