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Harsh Life Lessons From A Guy Who’s Spent Way Too Much Time Chasing Girls

by ·

IF I COULD sum up this article in a few words it would be this:

It’s not going to happen like you think it will, and it’s sure as shit not going to make you happy.

When we start out trying to change our dating life, what we’re really doing is attempting to upheave our emotional reality and replace it with one that we actually like. We’re trying to take our reflection and replace it with one we enjoy.

And if that sounds miserable, well yeah, it kinda is.

The sad reality about happiness is that when you tie it to a goal, it doesn’t make you happy when you’ve achieved it. It often just makes you end up looking around like someone who’s been given bad directions. However, it is often only upon achieving these goals, that we are freed to realize the goals that we actually value. Y’know, instead of chasing girls, doing something actually worthwhile.

So in an effort to help you give into your temptations, here are a few tips to help you get there even quicker.

1) GETTING ‘GOOD’ AT GAME IS AN EMOTIONAL PROCESS, NOT A LOGICAL ONE

The quicker you come to terms with your neediness, the better and easier your results will be.

When I was younger, I was convinced that ‘game’ was a logical, analytical problem for me to solve. I would view conversations as structured events and sequences rather than interplays of emotion. I would view sexual escalation as something timed and routine rather than something organic and instinctual. I would view lifestyle design as a way for me to bring women into my life, rather than lifestyle design being an extension of my own happiness, and that happiness naturally attracting people. And ultimately, I viewed myself as something to be solved, to be fixed, to be figured out; rather than someone to be understood, empathized with, and brought to life.

I think many guys are like this. They look for the logic in dating; the place to take her, the line to say, the ‘way’ to escalate. They think if they can figure it out then they’ll be fine.

Humans aren’t logical, they’re emotional. Men, in particular, like to believe that they’re free from their emotions, that they’re stoic or present or Zen; but in reality, the people who profess these things are usually the most emotionally influenced of all.

We view dating as a puzzle to be logically solved because we seek to understand what causes us pain. We think if we understand what causes us pain, then we will master it, and we will no longer fear that pain or feel it.

But you can’t out think a feeling, you can just learn to feel it. It’s emotions that got you into this mess, and it’s only emotions that can get you out.

When neediness is destroying our dating lives, the only cure is building a relationship with our neediness; admitting it’s there, feeling it, and learning how to live with and confront that feeling.

When we approach game as a puzzle, we feel neediness and feign confidence. We feel neediness and we drink so we can approach. We feel neediness and we recite our practiced lines, or escalation routines or god knows what else we think we need to do in order to ‘get her’ and placate our emotions. When we feel neediness, we do everything we can to simulate being someone who doesn’t.

But when we confront our neediness itself and build a relationship with who we are; all this stuff takes care of itself*, and stops us letting ourselves be led by our wounds, and instead follow our desire.

2) THE BETTER YOU GET, THE MORE YOU’LL GET REJECTED

Rejection exists to help you find the people who are worth your time.

The biggest thing echoing in the minds of young guys thinking of how to hit on girls is “how do I not lose her?”. This thought, buried with the network of their minds, continues on repeat, from before the interaction, during it, to well into the relationship itself. When, largely due to that thought, their relationship fails, the young guys then seek to heal their neediness through learning how to “never lose her”.

This ambition manifests itself in the ideal of the player. The guy who never gets rejected. What the young guy doesn’t know, however, is that it’s actually the exact opposite.

The better you are, the more you get rejected.

When you’re starting out, you’re so wrapped up in your neediness that you look for ways to avoid rejection and develop into the fantasy version of yourself that never got hurt like the ‘real’ you did. This is a direct symptom of neediness.

But when you’ve developed as an individual, and let go of the desire to prove something to your neediness*, you’ll actually find yourself starting to invite rejection into your life.

Instead of filtering your personality to that you’re more likable, you express yourself unabashed so that more people dislike you, but the ones that do really do. Instead of thinking of the right time, or the right intensity to express your sexuality, you express it unabashed, so you get shot down more, but you find girls who mirror your sexuality quicker, and start having more sex as a result. And most importantly, instead of looking for the right moment to approach a girl, you just approach, because you’re comfortable with awkward moments, and you’re looking for someone who is too.

It was a bit of a eureka moment when I realized that although my results were going up, I was actually getting rejected a lot more, I was far less controlled and far less suave. My interactions had very little in common except that they occurred with more frequency, and I more frequently got rejected.

But I also more frequently met girls who were really into me. And it’s the exact same for you.

3) THE MORE YOU GET REJECTED, THE BETTER YOU’LL GET

Every rejection is a lesson that success will always fail to teach.

Every technique, tip, advice, motivation, blog post, seminar, youtube video or seance you receive that you hope will improve your dating life are completely and utterly useless without experience.

And you better believe it.

Just as you get better, you’ll get rejected more. The more you get rejected, the better you’ll get. Not only will you learn what kind of girls are attracted to you, what kind of girls you are most compatible with, and you have the most rewarding relationships with; you’ll also learn what about you is most attractive, and what’s unattractive. You’ll learn what ‘techniques’ are bullshit, and what works – you’ll learn what works for you, and what cripples you. You’ll learn what’s universal to every interaction*, and what is just random.

Or in other words, the more you get rejected, the quicker you’ll develop your own style. And then you’ll never need advice ever again.

4) IMPROVE THE ELEMENTS THAT ACTUALLY AFFECT YOUR LIFE

The impact of sex on your life is infinitesimally smaller than the impact of your core relationships, your finances, and your career.

When I was younger, getting laid was the single most important factor of my life. It defined my confidence, how I perceived myself, how I believed others perceived me, and it dictated almost all of my actions; positive and negative. But as I got older, and became more experienced, I began to find that getting laid had little bearing on my happiness. In fact, if I was disappointed in my life, getting laid only seemed to magnify that disappointment. It was yet another factor in my life that couldn’t make me feel better.

An unfortunate reality is that if you’re reading this, it’s more than likely that you attribute far too much importance to having sex. But here’s the thing, sex comes from a happy life, it doesn’t make a life happy. And the more you pursue sex as a resource for your own happiness, the more you’ll cast aside the elements that actually influence that happiness.

Your relationships with your friends, your family, and ultimately, the women you’re romantically involved with, are infinitely more rewarding, engaging, challenging and worthwhile to your happiness than having sex. The closer someone is to you emotionally, the more important this relationship is.

Your financial freedom; sorting your spending habits, paying off debt, saving 20% of your income and investing your money wisely, are infinitely (extremely x 100 infinitely) more important to your happiness than anything you will ever encounter in your life. Especially sex. Because something will go wrong; illness, bereavement, debt or a desire to be free – and financial freedom is the resource for all of these things.

Your career is the largest time investment you will ever have in your life. Choosing how you spend this time, and how engaging and stimulating it is, is enormously important to your happiness. If you have a dream of being a partner at Big 4 accounting firm? Knuckle down. If you want to be a writer? Get typing. If you want to be an actor, singer, chef, scientist, magician or cop – put in the work and consciously make decisions that align your career with your enjoyment. Because as much as you hate to admit it yourself – you won’t be spending 40 hours a week getting laid, you’ll be spending it working. So it may as well be something you can enjoy.

Oh, and of course, let’s not forget your health. Because without it, you’re fucked.

As above, sex comes from a happy life, but it doesn’t make a life happy. The irony of my younger self, and a lot of guys I see out there, is that they overlook the true elements in their lives that are making them unhappy (relationships/social life, finances, career, health) and instead look for sex as a way of getting that happiness; rather than improve those elements, they look to sex, but it’s precisely the improvement of those elements that would make them happier, and as result get laid a hell of a lot more.

As any girl with half a brain will tell you: they love a man who’s life is exciting and enjoyable regardless of whether or not she’s in it. This is, in layman terms, the recipe for attraction.

5) NOBODY GIVES A SHIT IF YOU HAVE A LOT OF SEX, AND EVENTUALLY, NEITHER WILL YOU

When you imagine yourself as the person you want to be, you often imagine this person with a high level of esteem, envy, and admiration as reactions from other people. As I’ve written before, this is often a, albeit perceived to be, intrinsic element in our goals; the desire for social esteem and status as a result of our achievement. And when we look to improve our dating lives it is no different. Stemming from our desire to feel ..uh… “unrejectable” we are looking to become someone who cannot feel as we do now; socially and romantically irrelevant. But the truth is a little different.

In reality, nobody cares.

Just as we’re caught in the motivational pull of our emotional needs and the demands of our lives and psychological wounds; so is everyone else. Our self-interest isn’t a trait that is unique to us, but in fact ubiquitous to all. As anyone in sales will teach you: nobody cares what you can do, they only care what you can do for them. Whilst you’d probably imagine becoming some great player would mean you’d be the envy of all men, and the swoon of all women; in reality, most of the people you meet won’t really care. People are more concerned with their own lives, and anyone who’s been where you are and moved on knows what kind of place you’re in emotionally

People will either admire you because they’re inexperienced, or they’ll be more concerned with their own happiness, or they’ll pity you.

Yes, pity you.

Because they will realize, as you eventually will, that having sex will never live up to the idea of it that you’ll have in your head. Your ego will be stroked, sure. But behind that ego, will be a sense of disappointment, of emptiness that once again you haven’t been able to make that feeling go away. That once again, the hot girl hasn’t made you happy.

You’re stuck at an emotional dead end, and to anyone who’s been there, it’s blindingly obvious.

 

*99% of techniques are just hiding your emotional problems, fix the emotional problem and you’ll never have needed the technique in the first place – the techniques just replicate the behavior of someone who isn’t emotionally affected by women

*Read: fuck emotionally damaged women

*And you’ll learn this is making a move. And nothing else.

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Here’s The Truth About Being A ‘Player’ – The Sad, Emotionally Stunted Reality Of Your Fantasy

by ·

IT WAS A sobering moment when I befriended guys who ‘got laid all the time.’ I had formed an idea of who I wanted to be in my mind, an idea that was based around how I wished to behave, the results I wanted to get, and the way people would react to me. This idea, to my mind, would prevent me from feeling what I felt at the time; loneliness, sadness, and shame.

Based on what I felt was lacking within me, this idea took root in the real world as a ‘player’. A guy who got all the girls, and was capable of getting the validation I emotionally needed at the time. For a long time, it was my ultimate fantasy.

But as with any fantasy, reality had its ugly way with it.

THE PLAYER

I was sat in a hostel in South East Asia, talking with a guy who had an exceptional ability with women. When we went out, he’d almost always bring one home. He’d talk to them in bars, the club, the street, everywhere. When I asked him about his life, he always had stories littered with women. In fact, it seemed his stories never ran out. He’d experienced everything.

But despite this, something always seemed off.

Halfway through his latest story, probably about some South American threesome, or that Stripper he took home, I asked him if he’d ever had a long-term relationship. He said he had, then continued on with a story, probably about an air hostess. He was smiling and happy, but his body language screamed at me that he had avoided the question. So later I asked him again.

And I noticed a pattern.

When he talked about his Ex, it was stories about how she wasn’t over him, how whenever he went home she would jump at the chance to make herself available, how he felt sorry for her and sorry for the guy she was with. When he talked about his Ex, he made a point of illustrating how she knew she had lost out, because, clearly, he was such a great guy.

It was a pattern of details, of attention; where he always seemed to find a way to illustrate how desirable he was, and how hopeless women were without him. And it didn’t just pervade the stories of his ex, I came to realize it occurred in every story he told and everything he did.

It was one of those points in a conversation where the connection between you breaks, and you realize, despite the apparent similarities, that this is someone who is different to you on a fundamental level. He needed me to know his Ex regretted losing him. He needed girls to want to sleep with him and he needed me to know girls wanted to sleep with him. Because, at the base of it all, he wasn’t talking to me, he was talking to himself. He needed all these things.

He was consumed by his need for validation.

Despite the attention he got, the lifestyle he had, and the confidence he walked around with – there was something oddly hollow about him, something pitiable. I saw in him everything external that I wanted, but at the same time, nothing that I wanted internally. He was a man at once propelled by his confidence and ability, whilst at the same time, stunted by his malformed emotional needs, which he constantly had to placate with validation. Inside, he was just as needy as I was when I had started. He was just as needy as a guy who couldn’t get laid.*

Despite his results, he was everything I was trying to run away from.

Befriending guys like this, I eventually became disillusioned with my fantasy. The reality wasn’t a life I wanted, and it was a life that seemed to trap a lot of men. No ‘player’ seemed to have made it out the other side. Far from being immune to the pains that had driven me to seek validation from women, these men had been consumed by it. But what’s worse is that whilst they got laid all the time, they never, ever got the kind of girl who was impressive in her own right (confident, self-assured, and with her shit together). Instead, they had just become really good at gaming emotionally needy women. Because they were so emotionally stunted, all they could attract were emotionally stunted women.*

Both of them, locked in some need for validation from one another.

Right before my eyes, the James Bond fantasy became unmasked like some Scooby Doo episode as the babyish, emotionally immature fantasy that it always was. It turned out to be a life I didn’t want; and more importantly, a weak man that I never wanted to become. 

THE REALITY

A lot of guys find it hard to move beyond this need for validation. Hell, I still do too, even though I actively try to avoid it. The truth though, is that this lifestyle, without exception, has appeared in my life as something entirely without merit. Aside from a basic ability to confront anxiety, this lifestyle is usually an indication of an innate inability to confront something about oneself. This, of course, is not to say that being promiscuous is bad. It is only to say that your attachment to the idea, and any attachment to the idea you see in others – is almost always a bad sign. A sign that you or they are emotionally stuck, and going to stagnate.

When we let go of the hunger for validation, we invite into our lives a quality of emotional living that rewards us with enriched opportunities from life. If we truly value our development over our need for validation, then the outcome we invite is that we live lives that are in a constant state of growth. Instead of feeling we need to be someone, we organically become someone. Instead of telling people stories to enhance our ego, we tell people stories that add something to their lives. Instead of learning how to attract a certain kind of woman, we naturally attract the kind of woman who is right for us.*

With the rise of online dating, the shallowness of relationships has never been higher. Any guy with decent photos and a lick of confidence can become a ‘player’. But in becoming this player, he inadvertently confines himself within a sphere of emotional growth. It’s never been easier to get validation, but it’s validation that we should be wary of. Because looking outside yourself for fulfillment, in itself, stops you as soon as you get it.

Instead of aspiring to become another fantasy, hold your emotional richness as a benchmark for your own achievement. Look to overcome your fear, enhance your happiness, expand your comfort zone and diversify your identity. Instead of becoming a fantasy that exists to get you validation from women, become a fantasy that exists to make your life more fulfilling.

Because when you do, the women will come, and instead of being limited by it, you’ll be all the better for it.

 

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*I still see this same guy posting pathetic and ill-veiled updates on Facebook talking about how he’s newly single and ready to go wild. As if anyone cares and it isn’t blindingly obvious this is just to make his Ex jealous.

*If this is something you’re into, go for it. Personally, I’ve always found it unfulfilling, boring, and not much of a rewarding challenge.

*Unsurprisingly, the kind of woman who could lock us down.

Rejection Is Your Best Friend – How To Attract Women Who Are Genuinely Into You

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I SPENT MOST of my youth chasing relationships that were destined to crash into a screaming shit-heap, only for me to brush myself off, sniff-out another disaster, and head careening straight for it.

Like anyone else in those situations, I blamed it on luck. I was never one of those who outwardly said “I’m unlucky in love”, but inwardly, I was one of those who said “I’m unlucky in love”, whilst nursing a pot-noodle and watching sobbing re-runs of Titanic.

Whether it was a short, medium or long-term relationships, there seemed to be something about me that was preventing me from having the kind of relationship I actually wanted. Y’know, the fulfilling, exciting, supermodel one. Everything I ended up with was some measure of half-enthusiastic, halfheartedness, leaving me in a constant state of chasing someone who wasn’t really that into me.

It was a drag.

Our relationships in life say a lot about who we are as people. In his masterpiece, Anna Karenina, Tolstoy wrote “all happy families resemble one another. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I believe this is the same for a successful relationship, only in reverse. There is an essential element to relationships, that, depending on how we approach it, is either our best friend or our worst enemy. And it is our approach to this element that determines not only the initial success of the relationship but also the continued success of the relationship.

That element is rejection. And how we approach it determines everything.

THE MODEL OF ATTRACTION

When we attempt to meet new people in order to pursue a short or long term relationship, we will typically find ones we are physically attracted to and seek to win their attraction, approval, and interest.

This model of relationship building is the auto-pilot default of human mating, and it’s off shoots lie in the realms of flattery, coercion, fakery, supplication, approval seeking, disingenuousness, and pandering.

This model is engaged with, not just with the outcome of a relationship in mind, but more so because of the awareness of the obstacle that is present in the pursuit of that relationship: that is, the potential rejection.

Everything done in the attempt to win the approval of the one we’re attracted to is a direct effort to counteract and avoid this rejection. But this rarely results in the outcome we want.

I’ve written in other articles explaining how this behavior is unattractive in itself. So by approaching a woman we’re attracted to in this manner actively makes them less attracted to us. We’re making deliberate strides to shoot ourselves in the foot. But more importantly, the results we receive from this kind of pursuit are either empty-handedness or worse, we’re left with someone who we have convinced to be somewhat interested in who we have wanted them to perceive us as. Instead of leaving us with someone who likes us, avoiding rejection either leaves us rejected for being unattractive, or with someone who likes someone we aren’t.

THE COUNTERINTUITIVE APPROACH

The opposite to this approach is simple.

We aim to get rejected.

A running theme in my articles is this: “find the cause of the shitty results in your life and do the opposite.” Tired of working hours on something and getting nowhere? Spend a day doing nothing at all and watch the creative spark detonate. Bored of your life and its unfulfilling routine? Replace your external environment piece by piece, and watch that life change before your eyes.

In dating my advice is no different. When avoidance of rejection leaves you alone or in unsatisfying, broken relationships; the answer is to start inviting rejection into your life.

When I met my ex-girlfriend for the first time, I was overwhelmed with an awareness of my own behavior and the risks that my behavior posed to the potential relationship (read: sex) that loomed over the horizon. However, far from being introspective, I was instead hyper-aware of her and simply reacted accordingly. Unbeknownst to her, she was the hand on my marionette. The elements of my personality that were incompatible with her I simply kept hidden. Unsurprisingly, the result was two people, who although they liked each other, always struggled to make their relationship work.*

It turned out that in looking to not get rejected, I had rejected the possibility of a great relationship from my life. Leaving only a broken one.

We avoid rejection because we don’t like what it says about us. It says we aren’t good enough, it says we aren’t worthy; and we avoid it because worst of all, it feels like it’s validating what we already know; that we’re unlovable and destined to be alone. When our self-esteem is vulnerable, we avoid blows from rejection as if they were physical wounds. But as a result of this avoidance of rejection, we simultaneously avoid the very thing that will develop and strengthen our self-esteem; being accepted for who we really are.

When we avoid rejection by altering how we behave, what we tolerate and what we want to do, we actively reject ourselves from ever being accepted for any of those things. In other words, we stop ourselves from ever being liked for just being ourselves.

If someone rejects you for who you are, this is someone who you would never have a fulfilling relationship with. If someone accepts you for who you are, this is someone you would have a fulfilling relationship with by doing virtually nothing. This is, incidentally, why the majority of my pickup advice is: develop yourself, make a move.

DEEP REJECTION

If we actively avoid rejection out of a desire to be loved, it can be reasoned that we believe we are unworthy of love as we are, and therefore we aren’t just avoiding rejection from them; but we are actually doing far worse:

We are rejecting ourselves.

When we accept a relationship with someone who has a middling response to us, we are accepting that as the life we want and we are accepting that as the relationship we deserve. The truth of rejection is that we are rejecting ourselves before anyone else ever has the chance to.

This mismanagement of priorities comes from an inability to understand what makes us happy. When we believe a relationship will make us happy, we will actively pursue any relationship. When we feel we need validation in order to be happy, we will seek people’s approval at any cost.

The longer we remain trapped in a web of toxic motivation and needy behavior, the longer we will avoid rejection and shut ourselves off from rewarding relationships. The onus then is on ourselves to take responsibility for our approach to relationships and rejection.

LETTING GO

The simplest way to start getting the quality of relationships you truly want in your life, whether that be short term flings or long, fulfilling intimacy, is to start letting go of the desire to not be rejected.

Accept that it’s there, acknowledge it, then do the opposite. The more you develop an awareness of the ways in which you are avoiding rejection, and adjust your behavior accordingly, the more you open yourself up to meeting great people. Letting go of your avoidance of rejection isn’t about not feeling a desire to avoid it, it’s about recognizing that desire when it occurs, and in the many ways it occurs, and acting in spite of it.

This might be anything from not approaching her, to not speaking your mind, to not being as physical as you feel like you want to. Anything.

In a question, this process would ask: “Am I rejecting myself right now?”

Let’s say you want to get laid in a nightclub. The most likely person to sleep with you is a sexually active, attracted girl, who is comfortable with her sexuality. By actively being upfront and direct about your intentions and sexuality, you screen out girls who aren’t into you or comfortable with their sexuality, and you actually invite a girl into your life who views sexuality the same way you do. By getting rejected more, you have more sex. Go figure.

At the opposite end of the scale, in long term relationships, you are far more likely to meet someone who genuinely likes you for who you are if you are accepting rejection from people who don’t like you for you are. Instead of trying to ‘get back in touch’ with the ex who doesn’t want you, or trying to win over the girl who isn’t that interested, you accept the rejection and move on to people who are actually interested, genuinely invested, and much more capable of falling in love with you.

When you let go of your need to avoid rejection, you free yourself to start seizing opportunities; the more you get rejected for who you actually are, the faster you’ll find yourself surrounded by people who are interested and invested in who you are.

A LIFESTYLE OF REJECTION

The more we invest in who we feel need to be in order to be loveable, the more we invest in rejecting ourselves. Rejection doesn’t just lie within our behaviors around others, but in the very way we live our lives.

If we feel that we need to earn money in order to be worthy of love; we will devote all our efforts to pursuing that in the hope that we’ll get our needs met, all whilst simultaneously ignoring any germ of true personality that lies within us. If we feel we need to be funny and charming in order to be liked, we will smooth over moments of natural tension in interactions and destroy any spark that could have taken life.

When we fail to develop our lives and develop the richness of diversity and opportunity that exists within its potential; we reject ourselves from meeting a broad variety of people that would match us.

If we pay attention to finding the gold within us – maybe our desire to get into politics, or our desire to blog and travel, or our love of Japanese Anime, rugby, wrestling, classic literature, black and white cinema, hardcore clubbing or break dancing – we naturally give ourselves a compass which we can follow to find those who suit us best.

GENUINE DECISIONS FOR GENUINE RESULTS

Taking responsibility for our relationships means taking responsibility for the emotional reality in which our decisions with the opposite sex are made. In order to have the kind of relationships, sex life, and connection that we desire, we have to confront our own motivations and our approach to our identity.

Because if we’re acting from a place that rejects us before anyone has had the chance to, then those relationships will never come into being. Not only is this unsatisfying but it leaves us in a state of self-reinforcing emotional limbo. Every time we invest in someone who isn’t really into us, we invest in that part of ourselves that tells us we aren’t enough.

The problem with a results orientated mindset is that it prevents us from seeing what actually gives us the results we want. In relationships, this is enormous. Good relationships don’t start with a relationship, they start with someone who has a good relationship with themselves.

Before you look outwards, you have to look inwards, or you’ll never allow anyone to genuinely love you for who you are.

 

*Basically had a young, dumb relationship like anyone else.

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Here’s Why You Need To Start Meeting Women During The Day

by ·

THE MORE each generation becomes digital, the less men are learning to confront their anxiety and pursue women they’re attracted to. After all, why confront uncomfortable feelings when you can simply swipe from the comfort of your mobile phone? Why develop an ability to build connection and attraction out of that initial awkward stage of the meeting, when you can just comfortably chat behind a messaging app?

I say this not to judge those who do, but to genuinely pose the question.

Why would you?

COMPETITION

Aside from a deeply felt desire, there aren’t many reasons, and online dating makes more sense within the confines of people’s lives. This is only going to become more and more prevalent.

But it is precisely the answer to this question that makes approaching girls during the day so incredibly beneficial.

Where most men shy from their anxiety, you instantly differentiate yourself as someone who doesn’t. Where most men take a passive approach to their desire, you take an active one. Where most men are scared of her, you aren’t.

The answer why is because you’re inherently attractive.

When I’ve written about attraction in the past, I’ve argued is has everything about what you do and why you do it, specifically, that you act from a place of your own desire, and not from a desire to appear attractive to her.

Instead of preening your photos online, you actively put yourself in uncomfortable, often awkward situations, simply because it’s what you want to do.

And not only is this is attractive behavior, it’s magnified by the fact that no other guy does this.

SOCIAL PRESSURE

When writing about the benefits of meeting women at night, I discussed how the ego suffers twin blows as a result of rejection. The first comes from the blow dealt to the self, usually in the form of an external validation of an internal limiting belief, i.e a rejection from a girl validating your lack of self-worth. The second comes from the humiliation of social embarrassment. And this fear is so prevalent, it’s why so many people desperately crave not giving a fuck. This is why some guys have to do press ups in public in order to even be able to approach during the day. It’s why I find it far easier to approach in a foreign country than I do back home.

It’s one of those fears that sits right in the DNA. Nobody likes to get shot down in front of other people.

When talking about bars and clubs, I stressed that the strength of venues themselves was the fact that they offer an inherent element of anonymity, that, in a way, protect you from much of the social embarrassment. Nobody knows who you are or who you know, and they’re far more concerned with themselves.

And because of this, you should embrace the opportunity.

But when meeting girls during the day, this can feel like less of the case.

Whilst it’s true that as with bars in clubs, in the day time nobody knows who you are, or who you know and they’re far more concerned about what they’re doing; what you are doing is also far more social abnormal and uncommon.

And you, and everyone else is aware of this.

And because of this heightened state of social abnormality, the true fear of meeting girls during the day doesn’t come from rejection, but instead from embarrassment, of being seen doing something that is socially inappropriate and uncommon.

I state this because half the battle with dealing with fears is the ability to correctly label them. Sometimes a spade is a spade; and in this instance, you’re afraid to talk to girls during the day because you don’t want to be laughed at.

It’s the same fear that exists at bars and clubs but magnified, as it sits outside of the social conventions of the aforementioned venues.

It is crucial to understand this not just because of correctly understanding and managing your fears, but chiefly because you need to understand that talking to women as they go about their day to day lives is so uncommon that it can sometimes be threatening.

DROP THE GAME

The rule with meeting girls during the day is:

“Less is more.”

The reason for this is empathy. If you walk up to a girl during the day, the first reaction she’s going to have is one of startled confusion. She’s likely been walking around, stuck in her head, or blasting music into her ears, and suddenly, some guy’s shown up out of nowhere and started speaking to her. She’s going to be thinking ‘who is this guy? is he a threat? what does he want?’ and she’ll probably, like you, feel embarrassed.

This is why you should lay off with anything remotely out of the ordinary. Be plain, hell, even be kind of boring. After all, you’re already doing something that stands out, if you continue to add more layers of standing out, it just begins to overflow, overwhelm and end with you wiping out.

It’s not necessary.

But more importantly than this, one of the greatest benefits of meeting women during the day is that it shows you how little you have to do to have the dating life you want to have. More often than not, you just have to show up.

JUST BE DIRECT

As above, her startled and anxious state is going to lead her to question why on earth you’re speaking to her. Are you a tourist? Are you a creep? Are you gonna try and convert her to Mormonism?

She has no idea. So not only is she startled, she’s also confused and she need’s context. What is this interaction about? What do you want?

You solve this, by, funnily enough, telling her. You wanted to meet her, you thought she was cute – whatever. Make it up. As long as it’s true and provides a clear context, that’s fine.

As above, the benefit to doing this is that it involves substantially backing your own desire, and not leaning into that voice that tells you that need to do something in order to get her.

No, you just show up and put yourself on the line.

SELF-RESPECT

Whether or not you have an inherent interest in improving your dating life, it remains the case that approaching women you’re attracted to is one of the best and most effective ways of building self-respect and self-confidence that there is. Beyond any external results, internally, you will be honoring your most powerful instinct, and honoring your own self-worth.

This is, incidentally, why most guys find it so hard. On top of their issues with social embarrassment, they also have lingering issues of self-worth. And whilst I recommend confronting these issues of self-worth through therapy and self-reflection, the simplest way to smash through the plateau and improve the baseline of your self-worth is to engage with exactly what it tells you not to engage with.

As with attraction, approaching has less to do with them, and everything to do with you. At the beginning of this article, I asked why men would confront anxiety and approach women when they could just sit at home and swipe from the comfort of their phone.

The answer, it turns out, is simple. You’d do it for yourself. Because you respect your desires, acknowledge your worth, and don’t want to succumb to your fear and vanity. You don’t just want more from life, you can more from yourself.

So next time you catch yourself questioning whether you should – ask yourself this:

Why wouldn’t you?

 

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The Wisdom Of Animals – What The Animal Kingdom Has To Teach Us About Life, Love And The Achievement Of Our Dreams

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SOMETIMES, the endless complexity of human behavior can really get on my nerves. The avoidance soaked communication, the chronic lack of backbone, the inability to be bored and the false and bullshit-ridden life choices than stem more from fear than desire.

And it gets on my nerves the most when I realize all of it applies to me.

Nobodies special, and everyone sucks.

The downside of being a highly-evolved species is that our brains have a habit of overcomplicating everything. Where behavior should be simple, it is a maze. Where communication should be clear, it is a Jackson Pollock painting. Where life decisions should be guided by true values and happiness, they’re instead guided by insecurity, doubt, and emotional wounds.

The downside about being human is that our complexity can make our lives suck.

But beyond our intellectual superiority, sometimes it pays to remember at our core, we are just animals after all.

We shit, we mate, we seek food and we seek shelter. The variety is far greater, but the drivers are all the same. And with this in mind, perhaps it pays to look at animals for some insight into how an animal, even one that appears as different as ourselves, ought to live.

THEY EXPRESS THIER NEEDS CLEARLY

When we want something strongly, it seems like the last decision we come to is to express the desire for that directly. We look for ways to avoid expressing our desires directly, and instead engineer ways for them to be met. When I was younger, to get me to do some kind of chore, my parents would explain how there would be some kind of issue in the house, but instead of asking me to do it, would go on some explanation about how they’d have to suffer getting in fixed; all so that I’d volunteer my efforts.

It was a headache.

The indirect method of expressing desires comes from a fear that the desire might be turned down, and nowhere is this more apparent when rejection is on the line. Almost every time a friend comes and talks to me about their relationship issues, one of my first questions is “have you talked to your partner about this?”

And usually, the answer is no.

Instead of being upfront about what they want within their relationship, and being clear and direct, they have been approaching the problem in a roundabout way, having fights that are tangential and unrelated, but never once actually discussing their problem, and being upfront about the pain of their unmet needs.

It’s a stupid way to live.

When an animal you own wants food, or comfort, or water, or it’s belly scratched, or for you to look at the slaughtered mouse corpse that it just brought before you, it tends to walk right up to you and make these desires known.

Typically, by screaming in your face, or rubbing its ass on you.

And usually, by falling victim to the big Puss N’ Boots eyes, you do exactly what it wants.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that animals actually have a more intelligent way of communicating than we do, and it might pay to use a little more of their directness in our own lives.

There’s no real trick to this, you just need to be upfront about what you want. Maybe it’s something you need from a friend or family member, or maybe it’s something bigger, like support from your partner, or a more passionate sex life.

You just know what you want, and you talk about it directly.

THEY EXPRESS THIER BOUNDARIES EVEN CLEARER

One of the things we try to avoid the most is conflict with other people. We do this because we don’t want to be socially humiliated, or we don’t want to hurt the other person, or we don’t want ourselves to be hurt. But because of the intrinsic link between establishing boundaries and conflict, our avoidance of the latter leads to a failure of the former.

And here’s the kicker: we avoid conflict because we are vain. We avoid conflict because we care more about what other people think than we do our own values and our own sense of how we’d like to be treated.

And what happens as a result? Our boundaries get walked all over, and we get treated badly.

One of the sad realities of human beings is that they tend to take advantage of someone that doesn’t make it clear what they will and won’t tolerate. And because these people are vain; their response is usually to complain about how people don’t respect them or that they’re inherently worthless or being victimized.

But the reality is usually very different; it’s not that other people don’t respect them, it’s that they don’t respect themselves, and as a result, they have unsatisfying relationships.

In the workplace, this could be the boss that micromanages the shit out of you. In your friendships, this could be that friend that always casually insults you. In your relationship, this could be the partner who always cancels plans that are important to you.

In any of these examples, the solution is simple. You let them fucking know it’s not okay.

It’s all fine until you swim in his pool.

Think about anytime you’ve gone near a dog’s yard, or maybe picked up a cat that wasn’t interested.

What did it do?

I’d bet that it screamed, and I’d bet that it attacked you.

When an animal is treated in a way it doesn’t enjoy, it immediately lets you know and makes it clear what is tolerated and what is not tolerated. In fact, the delineation between the two couldn’t be clearer.

Happy: Purring, or some form of affectionate noise. Unhappy: Growing, hissing, clawing, barking.

You’d have to be a dumbass not to know where you stand.

But as with the case of expressing our needs, we often fall short in comparison to animals when it comes to expressing what we will and won’t tolerate; we suck at expressing our boundaries.

Now, you don’t have to growl and hiss (I mean, please don’t do this), but you have to be clear about what it is you aren’t okay with. Just as you should be letting people know what you want, you should be upfront about letting them know what you don’t.

Often, the results are surprising. Your relationships improve and everyone’s happier. Sometimes they don’t, and you have to leave them behind.

You never know unless you try.

THEY KNOW THAT LIFE IS DEFINED BY SILENCE

It seems like it’s just impossible to escape noise. That is, the noise inside our minds. The collating and communicating, the ruminating on the information we’ve consumed throughout the day, and the endless management of emotion.

And if we’re bored, then it gets even worse.

My brain has been trained by my awful habits to require a veritable salvo of stimulus in order to keep it entertained. Music blasted into my ears, the scrawl of social media or some bombardment of useless internet pages, or a couple of hours of time vanished into a youtube marathon.

My brain always needs something going on.

And it sucks. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In my article, The Do Nothing Paradox, I praised idleness as the font of creativity. That it is in those moments, where we let go of the need to be stimulated, and allow ourselves to just take in the world around us; allow ourselves to do nothing, and sit in silence, that we experience the most important flickers of creativity that can drive the strongest decisions in our lives.

A few years ago, at my hostel in Brazil, there was this large, ginger street-cat with mottled fur, who would climb up to the corrugated iron roof and cook himself in the midday heat. He was always completely alone, and he didn’t have a care in the world.

He would do this day in, day out, and he was always completely happy.

Watching animals, like the one pancaking on that roof, it becomes immediately clear how little stimulus they require. When they want to hunt, they explore their environment; when they have nothing to do, they sit and watch, or they sleep. Their lives, through their lack of complication, allow their way of living to be incredibly simple and as a result, their minds are extremely clear.

Schopenhauer said the mind is like a spring, too much pressure and it loses its power; to maintain it’s abilities, you have to release that pressure from time to time. In our lives, this is never truer. We are surrounded by a constant stream of information flowing directly into our brains, which affects our ability to make a decision and think clearly. We’re left dulled, foggy, and underperforming.

If we take the example from the animal kingdom and embrace those moments where we can do nothing, to switch off, we can allow our brains to sift through that information in silence, and come to the decision we were deafening ourselves from making.

THEY FOLLOW THIER CURIOSITY

In our lives, we often sell ourselves short in our approach to curiosity. Instead of following it, we look for some kind of certainty or guarantee that the object of our curiosity will result in what we want.

We never attempt our business idea because we don’t know if it would work. We never talk to the girl we like because we don’t know if she’s interested. We never write the book, risk the audition, sing on stage or quit our job because we just don’t know what’s going to happen, and the lack of knowledge terrifies us.

But here’s the thing. We will never know.

We just have to try.

When we have dreams and ambitions, we hold a clear image in our mind of what we want our lives to be, but we often don’t pursue them because of how we perceive that pursuit as likely to end.

By this I mean, we usually see ourselves failing. And it is that fear of failing that stops us trying.

In the animal kingdom, predatory animals (like ourselves) are designed to explore their territory, expand its boundaries and investigate any difference to what they know is the norm. They approach curiosity openly, without any preconceived conclusion, because they are aware it could lead to an opportunity that can enhance their lives.

When we, like predatory animals, open ourselves up to our curiosity, we invite into our lives opportunities that were not already there. For predators, this might be a kill or a mate; but for us, this could be a new relationship, our own business, or our first successful creative venture.

Where we go wrong is that when we approach our dreams we look for what will guarantee the achievement of the outcome we want; but because we can never find this, we never attempt them in the first place.

The essential element isn’t some certainty of outcome, the essential element is the uncertainty, and being okay with that uncertainty and doing it anyway.

It’s in being endlessly curious, stepping into uncertainty, and allowing your life to grow in ways you could never expect.

That is what animals have to teach us.

How To Get Your Dating Life Back On Track

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“IT’S OKAY to take a break.”

That’s the first thing I’d say to anyone who is, like I was, trapped within the anxiety of feeling like they have to continuously hammer away at the demands of their dating life.

I have argued in other articles in favor of the merits of hard, continuous work, and consistently meeting the demands associated with that work, in order to meet a goal. I argued that when those demands, in their entirety, are continuously met that the results sought will be continuously achieved and exceeded provided chance doesn’t deal you misfortune.

However, I feel that dating is the exception to the rule.

I have written many times that dating is an emotional process. That the more you learn to accept yourself, let go of your neediness, manage your emotions and confront your anxiety; the more your dating will burst into life. In my own, and many other lives, this has proven to be true. What has also been proven to be true is that the more consistently you engage with those elements that bring your dating life into bloom, the greater your results and the quicker your development. On top of this, with the same speed that your results are brought into being – when the demands cease to be met, the results can just as swiftly be taken away.

Therefore, it would make sense that if your goal is to improve your dating life, then you should devote as much time and energy to it as possible.

But this is not the case.

Dating is an emotional process, and because it is an emotional process, the desire to engage with it frequently in order to gain results as fast as possible isn’t actually as beneficial as you would initially think.

When we pursue an emotionally charged goal, it pays to keep a close eye on the emotion that underpins it.

If you feel that you need to keep hammering your dating life in order to not slip back into the person you were, the lack of results you used to get, or a general fear of ‘not being able to do it again’, then your desire to pursue an improved dating life comes not from a place of self-acceptance and desire, but instead from a place a self-hatred and fear.

In which case, your entire pursuit is self-destructive in the first place. You have tripped over the first hurdle, and what you are doing is not growing, but applying a band-aid as often as you can.

JUMPING OFF THE ROLLERCOASTER

There are three reasons that the pursuit of dating usually loses steam:

  1. The confidence is not there.
  2. The time is not there.
  3. The desire is not there.

In the case of 1, then the issue is to do with the psychology of the individual themselves, and the emotional reality from which they operate. In this case, a break would be necessary in order for them to explore the issues that are preventing them from taking consistent action. Pursuing dating when you haven’t developed a study psychological foundation from which to develop can often lead you to be unable to take action, or unable to properly process rejection and failure, which is only more damaging than if you’d done nothing in the first place.

In the instance of 2, this is perfectly acceptable, and any emotional healthy man would accept this, and live his life accordingly. In my own life, my dating life had to reduce significantly because I moved home to take care of a loved one. When I did go out, my results were less frequent, my confidence less on point, and I was generally not as comfortable. And I accepted this, as there were simply more important things in my life. Maybe it’s work, maybe it’s traveling, maybe it’s someone in need. Dating won’t always be (and shouldn’t be) the most important part of your life.

In the case of 3, the desire not being there is usually a result of an issue within your life, or simply a case of the validation being met. Many guys chase girls relentlessly until they finally get laid, and then lose all motivation for a while only to return later. This is usually to do with their biological motivations. And guess what, that’s fine. You don’t always have to be having sex. All that matters is that when you genuinely want to, you can. The flip side to this is losing motivation because of lack of confidence, as addressed above, or because of poor health, or a lifestyle that is too stressful.

In each of these cases, a break to reassess and find your feet makes perfect sense.

But once you’ve taken a break, and are keen to get back into the swing of things, how do you either go from zero to something or rediscover something you used to find so simple?

THE VOLUME PROBLEM

When your results suck, the easiest way to repair this is to start investing time into going out, and hitting on girls. The more girls you hit on, the better your dating life will be. This principle, whilst should never be taken as a reason to not take a break, is precisely the principle that will recover you quickest from a break.

There is no faster method.

But it’s never that simple.

When you haven’t been actively going out and hitting on girls, it very quickly becomes a lot harder to go out and hit on girls. Like a muscle that hasn’t seen exercise in a while, your ability to back yourself and approach women becomes weaker, but unlike muscles, this decrease is usually quite severe and quite quick to take effect.

Fortunately, it comes back ever quicker.

WORSHIP THE BASELINE

Yeah! Feel motivated!

When I was an eighteen-year-old kid starting university, my first nights out were fraught with anxiety. In fact, to describe them as anything less than terror-stricken experiences would be under selling how difficult I found them. I never used to enjoy social situations at the best of times, especially not with women (with whom I had zero experience), and as a result, I did everything I could to avoid, distract, overcompensate or run from the reality of talking to girls. My baseline ability was that I simply could not talk to them, or initiate any kind of sexual interaction.

It wasn’t something I could do.

We all have baselines of ability, the lowest point of which we are capable. We usually operate above this, but when out of practice, we will return to our baseline level of ability. This is true of anything; sports, video games, coding, writing, game, anything.

What is also true is that this baseline is not permanent, and never gets worse. As our experience and practice increases, and our operating level and results increase, so too, behind the scenes, does our baseline.

In our dating lives, men are criminal offenders when it comes to results orientated mindsets, and in pursuing their peak operating level. That one time they were really ‘on it.’

Most pursue this with alcohol.

I believe this is the wrong way to look at it.

When we focus on the peaks of our operating levels, we are chasing something that is often the result of countless external factors, that, through random chance, cumulated into conditions where we were psychologically operating extremely well. Not only is this chasing something that is out of our hands, it is building a dependency on something that is out of our hands. Which is a fools game.

In contrast, our baselines exist as what our minimum potential is. The lowest we can possibly achieve. If our highest operating level is that we can approach a hot girl directly, our baseline might be making indirect idle chit-chat at the bar. This is the level, that no matter how long our break is, that our minimum level of potential will be, and when engaged with, begins to bring our peak operating levels into life.

Because as you’ll find, you only operate at your minimum for a very short period of time.

After years of slowly building my confidence and self-worth, I am no longer the frightened teenager I used to be. My baseline has changed. Not to anything special, like I can walk up to women and charm the pants off them. No, simply because where I used to be incapable of doing anything, now, my absolute minimum is that I can approach anyone. No matter how out of practice I am, that’s always there for me to fall back on.

I’m not Casanova, but I am capable.

And that’s all I focus on. Not what I want to be, or want to be capable of, but what I am capable of.

Now, this might be helpful advice to someone who’s looking to regain skills they already had, but for someone just starting out, who feels, like I felt, that he can’t do anything, can’t approach anyone, this would seem like useless advice.

But this is not the case. In fact, it couldn’t be further from the truth. If your baseline is nothing, find the smallest possible level above it, and aim to do that. Hell, it could be asking someone the time, or holding eye contact with a girl. Anything. Take the approach that because you currently have no higher level of potential, you may as well focus on shifting your absolute minimum of ability.

Because step by step, that’s how you go from nothing, to capable. Permanently.

And trust me, no matter how crappy you feel, when your baseline is that, you know you’re okay.

The Essential Demands Of Achievement – The Elements That Create Success In Any Goal

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THERE ARE inherent demands that exist within any goal your pursue. These demands, in varying degrees, affect the odds of which you will:

  1. Achieve your goal
  2. Achieve your goal to a certain level or degree.

The difference between the two is the difference between, say, being a professional basketball player and being Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. It’s the difference between being a professional writer, and being Leo Tolstoy or George Eliot.

These demands, so intrinsic to our goals, are often the part that we least enjoy, or like to overlook because we don’t enjoy them, or we don’t enjoy the Sisyphean-esque perspective they place on our ambitions – but these demands, that any goal has, are Sisyphean in their endless struggle because the more we engage with these demands, the greater our overall result will be.*

In my articles on the achievement of goals I have argued three principle things:

  1. In ‘The Do Nothing Paradox’ I argued that it is in moments of idleness that our brains find inspiration and innovation in the pursuit of our goals, and that hard work isn’t always the key.
  2. In ‘You Dreams Are Achieved In The Moments You Hate The Most’ I argued that 99% of any undertaking you pursue will be unenjoyable, but that suffering is intrinsic to the achievement of the goal itself.
  3. 2) In ‘The 100-Hour Work Week’ I argued in favor of the merits of extreme hard work as an engine of massive change in one’s life, and something that should be actively combined with the merits of idleness.

Building upon these principles, I want to explore how the effects of understanding and actively engaging with the demands of a goal, and how that affects its achievement and the level to which it is achieved.

FALSE DEMANDS

Any task, when undertaken and achieves, carries a certain level of esteem that exists at the moment of completion. In writing, this could be publication. In sports, this could be going pro. In something like improving your dating life, this could be being perceived as being a ‘player.’

These levels of esteem can seem important to our goal, often going so far as to be the focus of our goal itself, and in this, can seem like an inseparable element from it. But this is far from the case. In any example of external esteem, it is only relevant insofar in that our goal is an externally validated goal.

For example, if our goal is to be a famous actor, we can only achieve this with esteem. However, if our goal is to be a great actor, then this goal is completely dependent on the demands of the acting craft itself, rather than the demand of public esteem.

This may seem like a trite point, but in my experience, this is far from the case. After all, who thinks more about publishing than the aspiring author? Who is more hung up on fame than the practicing actor? and who dreams more of a cheering crowd than a fledging sportsman?

The pursuit of esteem falls within the normal spectrum of behavior for anyone pursuing a goal, but it has no active effect on the achievement of that goal itself. A basketball player performing at Michael Jordan’s level is just as skilled as famous Michael Jordan playing for the Chicago Bulls, and the demands that got Michael Jordan to that level are the same for both, esteem or no esteem.

TRUE DEMANDS

The true demands of any goal, whilst unique in their specificity to the goal itself, have general overlying themes that are present in any goal. I call these universal demands; and these universal demands, when met with strong work ethic and innovation, ultimately determine the achievement of your goal and the degree to which that goal is achieved.

  1. The Demand of Criticism

In our self-esteem generation, it can seem like it’s counter productive to rip your efforts apart, and constantly look for flaws, but for our goals, this is one of the central and most important demands. To find our failures, even in our successes, and learn from them, means that we are constantly improving, constantly growing and never stagnating.

In writing, I am loathsome when it comes to rewriting and editing. I like to form an idea in my head that I believe is useful to people, and then I like to shit it out onto the page as soon as possible and publish soon after.

This – provided my ideas are useful – will, when combined with a solid work ethic, probably result in an audience of some form and a potential living from my writing. But if I were to take more time editing, and improve upon my writing as much as possible; working on the points where it was bad, and forcing myself to write in ways that I wasn’t comfortable and reliant, the strength of my writing (the very engine through which I engage with my audience) would increase, and my results would increase in kind.

In your own goal, this is no different. The degree to which you can criticize and learn where the improvement areas are in your own efforts compromise the degree to which you will be rewarded for your efforts in the first place.

Far from being a negative experience, this is, in fact, a confident approach to your work. Instead of being complacent in your ability, you are active telling yourself that you have it within you to always get better.

And that’s exactly what you do.

2) The Demand of Understanding

Comprising your goal are thousands of elements that affect the overall result of what you’re trying to achieve. In my article, The 100-Hour work week, I called these ‘You’re Fucked Without It’ factors, and 1% changes, that when totaled, add up to a massive increase in your overall performance.

In the pursuit of your goal, the true demands will exist within these factors and changes, but in a way that is unique to your goal. Finding them simply comes from a thorough understanding of what comprises your goal, and a strong and critical eye taken to your own efforts.

This is called not taking a half-hearted approach and is a natural off-shoot of criticism. It is utilizing understanding to discover where you can get better, so that every element of your goal is respected, and treated with equal importance so that you develop into someone who is highly skilled and specialized at achieving that goal.

This could be mastering character, plot, structure, and breadth of reading in writing; or it could be catch-passing, rucking, mauling, line-outs and sprinting in rugby. There are countless elements that can be improved, and where extreme criticism finds these improvements in your current performance, the elements that comprise your goal are found in a deep understanding of your goal itself.

Together, they provide a map for the improvements within your pursuit.

3) The Demand of Consistency

Work on your goal every day.

This demand, whilst obvious, and in need of no explanation, is often overlooked. In your goal, this will be showing up every day to work on it; but more importantly, it will be building the habit of showing up when you don’t want to. It will be forcing yourself to work when you’d rather be watching TV, when you need to sleep, when you’re tired, lazy, hungry, or most important of all, not feeling passionate or inspired. Because it is within the habit of showing up when you don’t want to that consistency becomes set in stone and progress becomes inevitable.

As a final word on this demand: taking a day off to collate your thoughts and give you mind room to breathe is still taking a day to work on your goal, as this step is a conscious effort to improve the mental environment in which your goal is pursued, and allow innovation to germinate.

4) The Demand of Innovation

Outside of the immediate area of your goal and current performance, there exist periphery factors that, whilst not directly related to your goal, if crossed over, can significantly improve your results.

In your dating life, this would be your own personal development and conversational ability. Whilst they have little bearing on your confidence at approaching women, they will significantly affect your results. In writing, this would be a varied life experience, as this experience gives you something to capture and share that adds value to the reader.

High-level athletes do this all the time. It’s not uncommon in modern international and club rugby to see players utilizing basketball style throws in order to keep the ball moving between the players in situations where a traditional rugby throw would be impossible. In older games, this kind of practice was not yet seen, as the innovation through basketball techniques had not yet been identified within the periphery.

This demand, whilst less important that the former demands, is the one that affects the degree to which you can add something new to your goal and separate yourself from the attempts that have been made before you.

The easiest way to satisfy this demand is to actually serve the specific demand of writing itself, which is to live a varied life with varied life experience. This kind of living naturally invites elements that are going to enhance whatever goal it is you are pursuing. If you’re adventurous and like to test yourself at improv comedy classes, that’s probably going to improve your dating life. If you’re naturally curious and like to attend ballet classes, that might just improve your posing routine at bodybuilding competitions.*

You don’t really know unless you throw yourself out there.

THE ULTIMATE DEMAND

With each demand, there is a single unifying principle that threads them all together and it is this:

You approach your goal with an open mind.

Instead of just seeing where you’re doing well, you’re looking to see where you can be better. Instead of assuming you know your goal well, you’re looking to further your knowledge of it to see what more you can learn. Instead of being closed off to the world and it’s potential, and open to the world and looking for the unexpected experiences it can offer you. Instead of viewing your goal as achieved only upon esteem, you view your goal as a continual progress of meeting its demands head on.

This openness towards your goal extends beyond its pursuit and into its inception itself. It is an attitude towards curiosity that naturally expands your life, but more importantly, naturally transforms your goal into something you may actually pursue.

After all, if you don’t close your mind and tell yourself you’ll fail, you might just actually try.

*Not accounting for terrible misfortune, like illness or bereavement.

*This is actually what Arnold Schwarzenegger did.

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