Emotions

The Daily Mail had a piece on U.S. college students' confidence levels shooting sky high while their actual competence and performance in the areas of their confidence dipped to new lows a few days back (the original article's here).

The article mentioned research finding that that more and more young people were carrying bigger and bigger life goals, and more and more of them were falling short and slipping into depression and anxiety disorders.

It quoted psychologist Jean Twenge as saying "You need to believe that you can go out and do something but that's not the same as thinking that you're great," and, "An intervention that encourages [students] to feel good about themselves, regardless of work, may remove the reason to work hard."

I thought it was a fantastic article for one reason: the clear differentiation between confidence and success.

I've always found the, "I just need to tell myself I can do it, and then I can do it!" approach to "achieving things" to be a little daft, and it's nice to see some research backing this up.

I'd like to talk with you a little about this today, because, if this research is anything, there are fewer and fewer people out there like me who think that the secret to success is just going out there and busting your chops until you get there, and more and more who think you can just think your way to success.

Well, I've got news for those people: nuh-uh.

Today’s article, on stress coping techniques, I wrote as an expanded and built-out version of the advice I had for a reader in the comments section of Chase’s article “Are You Smart? It Doesn’t Much Matter Either Way.” The reader in question was having problems coping with his emotions and the situation around a woman in his life:

“Chase what can I do to stop caring about people. And I don't mean it in a cold way but I care for this one girl a lot and it's messing up my head and making me very emotional. It's not like the article when you wrote "can't stop thinking about her", this girl has done a lot for me and she makes me happy but My feelings are strong for her and I hate having feelings. I feel weak and out of control, I'm not asking on how to get her I just want to get rid of my feelings and take control of my emotions. Also chase idk if you working on it or not but I asked for an article on self esteem/inferiority complex? I just want to know if you Remembered about it. Thank you”

I had the idea for this article for a while, but I left it alone for three main reasons:

1. Stress and emotions are often difficult to teach how to manage

2. It’s hard to go into lengthy detail and provide enough pragmatic steps to mold your coping mechanisms in a way that’s truly helpful

3. It’s not easy to simply cast away your emotions

I think this way from experience, because while I myself personally find it easy cope and move on, it can be incredibly hard to help someone else become that way. Really the only way I’ve found to fundamentally change people is by becoming a role model for them, and to help them over long periods of time.

However, I do have some good solid advice that I’d like to share with you today, and some steps you can follow when things go awry.

We've talked a bit on here about threats and opportunities in the past already, but I wanted to take some time today and really dive into the differences between these two mentalities and how they affect your success in pickup, dating, seduction, and relationships, because they're of great importance.

On the article about anxiety in men, JFav comments:

“Hey chase! After reading thru a lot of these comments one theme I think keeps reoccurring is the guys who have improved have all embraced one thing. And I believe one of the many things you and some other guys have embraced is your "inexperience." More specifically you guys embrace mistakes not as bad things but as learning tools. I could almost see some of you doing things you KNOW were "wrong" just to CHECK if it could be right.

I've gotten that sense from a lot of your post Chase because I know you are a guy that likes to decode and really get to the core of things. So, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on my epiphany moment that "mistakes are just learning experiences."

I'd love to see a post where you talk about the time when you were learning pick up and seduction and how you questioned things asking yourself "could this really work" or "there's NO WAY that could work" And I'd love to hear some stories about how you said "F it I'm gonna try it anyways just in case he could be right"”

At the core of J's realization here is the opportunity he'd been missing in situations with women before, when he'd been blinded by the threat present in those situations. As he notes, I went through a similar transformation in my approach to women and dating, as have every guy who's reached a point where he's broken through to the site where learning is fun and no longer scary.

How do you break through, defeat timidity and apprehension, and free yourself from the feeling of "threats?" It's partly experience and exposure... but it's also partly something else.

There've been a handful of commenters recently asking about an article on anxiety in men, including this one, the first of these more recent requests:

“Hi Chase,

A slight digression from the post, hope you can add your two cents to this. You mentioned avoid being the guy who's "racked with anxiety". Throughout most of my life, I have been plagued with anxiety. My mother suffers from anxiety and I believe it has significantly influenced my development. In high school, though I was part of the cool crowd, i knew at the very core, I was extremely uncomfortable around other people. To hide my weakness, I would put on a facade that consisted of being a loud, obnoxious, "bad-ass" person.

I have matured from this and instead of living through a mask, i want to tackle my anxiety head-on. My belief is that, just like anything, gradual exposure will ultimately desensitize. I have been forcing myself to approach strangers and make conversations on a daily basis with this belief in mind. It's been a difficult journey though. Correct me if I'm wrong but through reading your ebook and blog posts, I take it you've gone through a phase of social anxiety/general anxiety yourself as well. If you could be so kind to share with me how you tackled your social anxiety, specific "exercises" that you found extremely helpful, anything you think is worth mentioning, it would truly be a boon to my development.

Many thanks,
Jack”

Jack, sure, I can go through this a bit. It's a little off topic from what we normally talk about, but I think it ties in well to being more successful with women and dating, so let's have a look.

This'll be a more personal post for me, similar to the one on how to overcome depression, simply because it's one I've had a lot of experience with and spent a long time stuck in. Anxiety and depression are quite often part-and-parcel to one another, so you might even think of this as the sequel to that post: defeating anxiety.

When I first began working in the self-help industry in earnest, I was, as most new to the industry are, overcome with a desire to help others. The pride I got when hearing I'd helped someone turn around his station in life with women, or turn around his life in general, was great. It's still wonderful to hear, but back then it was amazing.

It took me a while to recognize it, but there was another side of the coin to self-help too; it's the side I mentioned in "How to Master Anything" when talking about the "complainers" (as contrasted to the "fixers"), and it was the people you'd run into that you couldn't help. These were the ones who seemed like they wanted help, and they were there asking for it, but you just couldn't break through.

Eventually I did some research on it, and found out there was a distinct psychological term for this: it's called "victim mentality."

And it isn't the people you think who have it. It isn't some poor pathetic schmuck sitting around in his room moping about why life has to be so hard. Sure, that guy's got it too, but there are a lot of other people who have it:

• Parents
• Teachers
• Bosses
• Colleagues
• Models and actresses
• Jocks and playboys

... I've met people in almost every walk of life with victim mentalities. It's surprising when you encounter it, and you see it to different degrees... but it's there.

For me, recognizing my own victim mentality a long time ago was key to getting my life moving again in the right direction. And at the same time, I spent a decade in "neutral" because of my own refusal to see it and fight it, and I've met scores of people along the way similarly bogged down by this.

If you want to break free of it - if you really want the kind of life you want, with the kinds of things you want in it - this is another one of those situations where you'll find that the answer doesn't lie in the world changing to suit you... but rather, this answer lies within.

Today I wanted to share a few more of my dating tales - this post is more a grab bag of experiences and tips and stories, but I wanted to talk about a girl I met from a long time before, a simple hand-test I love doing with women that tells both them and you a lot about each other, and a friend of mine who let obsession take him too far.

I was standing at the subway station, waiting for Sandra* to arrive… she was to be my date for the evening.

*Names and places changed to “protect the guilty.”

Suddenly, a beautiful girl left the train and headed towards me, smiling… and it’s not the Sandra I was expecting.

I must have gotten my Sandras confused…

But who in the world was this girl?!

Well, that time has come - time to wrap up our relationship series.

This has been a long collection of articles about the topic of relationships we’ve put out over the last several weeks… and if you asked me to, I could easily write another one just as long. Relationships are simply an incredibly complex topic, with a million little counterintuitive nuances.

Every time you think you’ve got them down… you don’t.

On the one hand, many of the rules we learn for dating go out the window… the game changes completely once you get into a monogamous, committed relationship with a girl.

On the other hand, you still can’t suddenly be a pushover, so a lot of the inner game advice still applies… and where and how to apply everything and in the right context is certainly an art and a science unto itself.

A lot of readers had written in with questions about relationships… and in my experience, this is what a large portion of our students ultimately want to get out of this game… sure, it’s nice to have a lot of choice in beautiful women, and sure, it’s nice to at least have the ability to live a playboy lifestyle for a while.

But when it comes down to it, most guys don’t really want to live life as far out as Chase or myself. The two of us have taken dating to the extreme, which is why we’re now in a position to teach just about anybody about almost any situation – after a decade of obsessing over this skill the way an Agassi would obsess over the game of tennis, there aren’t many situations we haven’t experienced yet. You might not want to be this obsessive… most people don’t.