NEL Blog

There’s a common mindset that people have when they start learning to be good with women, which is the idea that they can do some studying or get some kind of shtick (how do you spell that?) which will eliminate rejection/failure completely. The ‘right’ way is learned, and the ‘wrong’ way that gets the undesired result will never happen. I thought I’d throw some ideas about that out, that’s what this post is about. There are several things wrong with this way of thinking:

1) Lack of character/confidence

2) Wrong orientation of results

3) Wrong interpretation of ‘failure’/Lack of knowledge about the process of learning a skill

4) State is key

I’ll go through these one by one.

1) Lack of character/confidence

If you’re concerned about doing something wrong, or what others think, you are automatically placing yourself one step below these people, who probably don’t care about you. If you open a set in a public place, get blown out, and someone is looking, would that bother you? With a strong character, it would not affect your state or frame…it would be like a bullet bouncing off robocop. Luckily, repeated exposure to this event (along with the correct interpretation of it), will assuage that response and eventually remove it. As will changing your thoughts… reframing negative interpretations of events into positive ones until it becomes automatic to do so. A strong character is undisturbed by failure, will take something positive from it (a learning lesson, motivation for future success), and keep pushing towards goals. A lack of character is intertwined with…

2) Wrong orientation of results

Your goal is not what you think it is. You think it is to talk to 10 girls today, or to get a kiss or whatever. But in actual fact, your goal is “not embarrass myself today and perform all my pick up activities within the umbrella of non-embarrasment.” Your focus is on what you don’t want to happen, rather than what you do, therefore such things that effect your goal are brought into your conscious attention, and given emotional relevance so that you notice them. You fix this by keeping in your focus the actual thing you want, short term and long term. Getting a result you don’t want is irrelevant, it is a small incident along your way to what you do want, and besides, you have a…

3) Wrong interpretation of failure/Lack of knowledge about the process of learning a skill

No one succeedes without failing along the way. No one has the easy rise to wherever they are. No one. This is a fact of life, but the difference between people that make it and those that do not is the way they interpret failure. Failure is not failure, it is feedback to guide you towards what you do want. It is a success in finding something a way that did not work. It is also data for your subconscious mind to assimilate, so that in similar instances in the future your instincts with be slightly more honed towards success. Think about another skill to illustrate this, say shooting 3 pointers in basketball. With every shot you miss, your mind assimilates the muscle activations and adds that data to the next shot you take. The bigger your ‘database’ is, the more accurate your shots are. However, what about those times when a basketballer (or any sportsperson), PUA or whatever is ‘off’ and keeps missing despite the large database?

4) State is key

The memories and information in your brain are linked to emotional states. The most productive one is the state of ‘flow’, which everyone knows of, and is also called being ‘in the zone’. This is the state in which you are most able to access the data you need from your brain; your lack of thought and analysis gives you free access while time seems to fly by. Once the basketball player takes a shock to his state (and it happens to the best at some point: people are not infallible), and moves out of flow, access to the database is inhibited, and access to other ones is opened, such as other times he lost state, which is not associated with a database for good performace. So back to PU, you take the above steps to removing this mindset, get into positive states, reframe etc, and start building experience. Your confidence grows and as you are in this state often, you can access your best skill, which makes your confidence grow etc. But at some point you’ll take a hit. The better pick up artists are the ones that can put the hits out of their minds, stop dwelling on them and start again (go to step 1).

OK just some ideas there which work for me and others. Any thoughts, comments, or advice of your own about changing this mindset into a positive, success seeking one? Anyone going to try this?

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