To overcome approach anxiety, fear of rejection and rejection itself you want a strong mind in the activity of courtship. A strong mind thinks, a strong mind feels “I will overcome.” I will overcome, I will overcome is the attitude of a strong mind. I will succeed is the attitude of confidence. I will persevere, I will endure is the attitude of toughness. We want a strong mind, that is confident going into courtship and is tough no matter the outcome of approaches. Once we get a strong mind in the activity of courtship we can develop discipline. Discipline is when you can do what you want to do no matter how you feel about it. You get discipline by practice, by practice and repetition until your style becomes a strong habit. When your style has become a strong habit nothing can stand in your way because your instincts, from within, push you to do what you want to do.

The obstacles that stand in our path to obtaining a strong mind in the field of courtship are uncertainty/your imagination, negative expectations, and just overall feelings. By uncertainty/imagination, I mean when you first start courting girls you don’t know what to expect and your imagination can get carried away and you can start feeling like you’re going to the electric chair or the gallows; it can feel like you are about to die. The fear is coming from not knowing what to expect. If you have dated girls and things have gone negatively you have negative expectations for courtship and that’s where your fear comes from. Fear is by far the greatest obstacle to learning anything new. Our first task to be good at courtship is to get over your fear.

To get over your fear you should do several things. 1.) Affirmations- you want affirmations, reasons to be confident and reasons to want to do it. You want these to be very compelling, so compelling that they suppress your fear. So you want to come up with affirmations and repeat those affirmations. It is my belief if you are patient and continue to repeat those affirmations your feelings will change. Your feelings will change enough to do what you want to do. Just don't quit. 2.) Plan- know what you are going to do. By knowing what you are going to do you remove an element of uncertainty and that makes things less intimidating. 3.) Style- know that the way you are going to court works, by observing that style has worked in others. Or build on the style of others and invent your own. 4.) positive experience- successfully courting girls will give you confidence because you will expect good things when you talk to women and that will make your confidence very secure.

Next, you practice and practice your style and courtship. After you have practiced enough your style of courtship becomes a habit. At this point you have discipline and can do what you want no matter how you feel because your habits will push you in the direction of doing them.

Lastly, no matter how good you are your approach may not go the way you want it to go. We don’t think about this going into an approach. We think we will do well. However, if it things do not go accordingly to plan there is a way to prepare for this: toughness affirmations. As I said toughness is when you think I will endure, I will preserve.. There are certain ways to feel this way. Thinking that you did the right thing or you will do better in the future will help you to not get down. You just want to be able to deal with the feelings of a set back well, You just want to be able to protect yourself emotionally because if you feel bad that can be very detrimental. Ironically, enough if you have a setback you will have the experience to know you can get through set backs.

Also you can always look to others that care to encourage you so that you become confident and so you become tougher. Others that will help you get to where you need to be mentally to do what you want to do.

Prisca Sapientia

"There are few new things in this world, very few. That's why people that are young, if they're smart, try to profit from the experience of an older guy so they won't have to go through all the pain and suffering. But a certain amount of pain and suffering is good because it makes a person think that they've learned."

Few men are brave by nature, but good discipline and experience make many so.
Good order and discipline in an army are more to be depended upon than ferocity.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli ~

Affirmations do very little if the underlying logic/belief isn't examined first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abb2eJlCIt8

That's my gift. I let that negativity roll off me like water off a duck's back. If it's not positive, I didn't hear it. If you can overcome that, fights are easy.
George Foreman

This topic is full of win. Let's keep the inspiration rolling brothers. Side note, can you go a little more in depth with the whole affirmation thing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6xLYt265ZM

Affirmations….your beliefs (beliefs about whats valuable, what is good, what you have the power to do) define your reality and therefore determines your feelings and actions. Your confidence can be so strong that you naturally impose it on other people and intimidate others. The point of affirmations is to say something so compelling and impactful to yourself that it makes you confident. Just the thought of it can make you confident all at once or it makes you confident by repeating it and building the feelings. You want to affirm yourself in order to conqueror your fears and insecurities.

Examples: (psyching your self up or out)

1.) You fall in love with a girl and obsess over her and get intimidated by her when you think she is so beautiful and that sex with her would better than 10 million dollars. You fall out of love with her when you think she is just gonna bled once a month, bitch and moan, and spend your money. You fall out of love with her when you think she is boring, she’s unintelligent…basically she loses her value when you think about her faults.

2.) Mike Tyson is intimidating when you think about his power. He is unintimidating when you think he talks like a girl.

3.) Death is intimidating when you think about how painful it may be. Its not intimidating if you think of I’m just gonna go to heaven.

“So as a man thinketh in his heart so he is” (proverbs 23:7)

“Confidence comes from perspective…” (John Wooden)

“The repetition of affirmation leads to belief and when that belief becomes a deep conviction things start to happen” (Muhammad Ali)

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. (Nelson Mandela)

“Courage is the mastery of fear not the absence of fear” (Mark Twain)

“An optimist is the only thing worth being” (Winston Churchill)


Cocky-Humble
Being humble is being grounded, securely, in yourself of strength. Being cocky can make you strong because the affirmations that you give yourself make you confident. When you make yourself confident your confidence suppresses your insecurities enough to face what you want to face. People don’t like cockiness of arrogance for many reasons, one is you might be setting yourself up to fail. However, with arrogance you may bite off more than you can chew, but with limitless self-belief you push yourself to be all that you can be.

The basis of Limitless Self-belief is that the SKY is the Limit/All Things Are
possible. Its about imagination, imposing your imagination upon on perceived limitations. You believe then impose it on reality.

The example of how cockiness can give you strength is with Scrappy Doo. Scooby Doo is afraid of every thing but scrappy do is afraid of nothing because of his mentality. That way he can face anything he wants to face. However, never be reckless. Fear is to protect you so you have to be aware when your fear is telling you don’t do something because its actually something stupid.

Examples of affirmation:

“When you feel like your not tired, tell yourself you’re not tired and finish the drill”

“All Work is easy Work”

“Bitches ain’t Shit”

“I’ll be damned if I don’t talk to her”

“If you’re not going until you fail you’re not givin your all”


Example of Using Limitless Self-belief to supress your insecurities and to impose that belief on others:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9MtJ164 ... EBD7A9A5EB

Example of cockiness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sf0OpvE ... EBD7A9A5EB
Example of Imposing your belief on reality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN0iuLf1 ... EB&index=6

What is Confidence?


With a lack of confidence people can’t do what they want to do, place limitations on themselves, they can’t take ridicule, they don’t confront danger or take risks, they cant take pressure and so they don’t work hard, they can’t even think for themselves. And its all emotional. The emotions drives thought and the thoughts reinforce emotions.

Its hard to make yourself confident because you have to tell yourself things you don’t believe. You have to get out of your perspective and take a leap of faith. You have to go against your emotional flow. That’s really hard to do on your own.
Having faith, having confidence when you're unsure is like getting into a pool. You can keep putting your foot in looking for reasons to get in, to believe or you can just jump in and see what happens. YOu can just believe and see what happens. Jump into the unknown.


(Its not fake it till you make it.... its BELIEVE IT TO ACHIEVE IT)

Confidence is the certainty of your success like the sun will rise and set in the evening.

People don’t succeed because they either don’t have an opportunity or they cannot handle the pressure that comes along with that opportunity. They can’t handle the pressure because they don’t have someone encouraging them, inspiring them, or showing them compassion. Everythin starts with believing that you can, but that’s not as easy as it may sound….somestimes people can't handle pressure, so they fail as they will and they feel inferior becuase of failing and this hurts ther confidence even more. They aren't inferior they are just undiscipline and discipline is develop Discipline is as much of a choice as building your own house is a choice.

A good coach/trainer is supposed to give you the truth and the spirit to face the truth. Most people however, are only concerned about the truth and never factor into the equation how pressure will affect people.

Feelings influence thoughts and thoughts influence feelings. This is why negative thoughts and words reinforce such feelings.

Its hard to get confidence from those around us, because many times our peers are so proud that they can’t stand to see pride in another person. So they don’t like to see us feel good about ourselves. Disrespect hurts self-confidence and self-esteem. How people treat you has shaped you. So when you decide to make changes you have to be aware of their influence

Confidence, Humour, Happiness, are all coping mechanisms to fight off negative feelings.

Most people overlook feelings but feelings are more valuable than gold. Feelings are in fact the driving force in people lives. if you love something you can't stop thinking about it. if something is embarassing you want to banish it from your memory. The Word says "Guard your heart because it will determine the course for your life" Proverbs 4:23. hurt feelings, a broken heart can completely ruin a person

People look at others as if feelings are weird or odd or a sign of inferiority, but the are simply a product of experience. If people had the same experiences they would all feel the same.

Honor is very important because how you see yourself will determine how you feel about yourself and think of yourself. Its about your value and empowerment, empowering your self-image.

That cocky talk inspires confidence.

"People want to be in my shoes, but if they had to go through some of the things I go through they would cry. That’s what discipline is; discipline is going in and doing something that you don’t want to do but you do it like you love it."
(Mike Tyson)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKjK95aRrhc

Spiritual Empowerment- “I am the Captain of my Soul” (Henley). The essence of spiritual empowerment is the realization that you control what you think, how you view things, what you value, what you believe AND you decide what you think is right and wrong. There is an awareness of how you’re influenced by others and pressures. If you cannot control how you are influenced you should leave the situation until you can control it. There is an awareness of the moods of those around you because feelings rub off. There is an awareness of how you are distracted. Liking yourself so much that no one can hurt you or change you if you don’t want them too. If you come from a very authoritarian background, I mean a home with an overbearing parent or strong religious background you could have perfectionist tendencies. By perfectionist tendencies I mean always measuring yourself by some mythical standard and looking for approval that you have met that standard. You will never be perfect. You decide your own standard or to have no standard and to just love yourself unconditionally.

Confidence and desire-You want to believe in yourself so much that everything seems easy and harmless. You want to fall in love with what you are doing, you want what you are doing to seem so pleasant so irresistible that you can’t help but do it. That’s why people say be positive, but it has to be impactful positivity. And when you start feeling better about yourself you’re going to get more energy. You’re going to start to feel like there is something good out there for you, although you can’t put your finger on it, and its easy to get.

More on Insecurity- When you feel unsure its very hard to commit to anything. Its very much like answerin questions for a test that you have not studied for; everything seems wrong. And its all about feelins.

Emotional Contronl- when you commune with an emotion more and more frequently. That emotion becomes a mental habit and you are lead to a place mentally where you feel that emotion more often/ easily or that emotion just becomes your mindset/temperament.

Experiences can be deceiving, I mean so impressive that they lead us to overestimate or underestimate others/ourselves/ things just because what our subconscious expectations tell us about that experience. WITH THAT SAID REMEMBER YOUR GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENTS TO INSPIRE YOU WITH CONFIDENCE. REMINISCE TO LEARN LESSONS THAT HAD TO BE LEARNED WHILE FORGETTING WHAT SHOUT BE FORGOT, YOU REMINISCE UPON YESTERDAY TO INSPIRE YOU WITH FAITH FOR THE FUTURE, FOR HOPE AND CONFIDENCE for tomorrow.

Understand how things influence you and distract you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypo1-cGbCBY

Very insightful stuff... So with the affirmations I just create a list of commandments for myself and recite it day by day until it is engraved in my mind. I tried Ross jeffries unstoppable confidence tapes. He gave me some affirmations to recite. The funny thing is they actually worked for a couple days. But it seemed the effects started wearing. To be honest I can't give you a good reason why this happened. I wish I knew. I'll be honest. I do get AA. I truly wanna rid myself of it. Sometimes I go for it. Other times I don't... I wanna do it all the time!! haha. That video with mike tyson that you sent. That's very intriguing. How was he able to convert his fear like that? Was it some form of self hypnosis? With each step he got closer to the ring He became more and more confident. How is this so? I would love to learn how to apply this technique if their is one haha.

Lastly, just a comment i'd like to make. As a kid I used to be terrified of roller coasters. I truly don't know why. But I was none the less. I ended up going on them anyways to seem cool in front of my friends and family. But now days. I get so excited when I am about to ride a roller coaster. I'm just filled with so much excitement I could barely contain it haha. I was wondering. Is there a way that this can happen to me with approaching women instead? Just a thought I had. Thanks again man.

Optimism

I doubt my doubts and thats why I am confident. Where I am met with a limitation I impose my imagination to get over it.

The way you think is a habit. If you are postive its a habit. If you are negative its a habit. The habit was most likely spurred on by some emotion deep sadness(for negativity) or great happiness for (positivity) people rarely chose to be the way that they want to be. People's habits are just usually a by product of the pressure their experiences placed upon them.

I imagine reasons why something is right. I look for reasons why something can be done. I have the attitude of a conqueror "i will overcome." I always try to turn a negative into a positive in order to gain strength and encouragement. I am always positive, but I mean I am overwhelmingly positive. I am bombastic with positivity conquering doubts, fears and insecurities. Sometimes you have to face the truth, a harsh truth, but I am never unnecessarily negative. Recognize that you have a choice that you can look for reasons why something is wrong or you can look for reasons why something is right.

Life is so hard and people get hurt so much that most people are negative and just overly critical. It becomes a habit just because you were exposed to an overly critical parent, coach, boss etc...then you become overly critical and you even take a sort of joy in finding the faults in others. Since you don't think to feel good about yourself you you fall in love with putting others down. The majority of people are like this because life is so hard. So when you are an optimist it is really you against the world, you against everyone that is against what you believe and who is trying to sway your position. To maintain optimist it takes either a strong mind that can't be swayed, an aggressive mind that dominates people so much that they never have the opportunity to put negative pressure on you, or a man that isolates himself so that he may not be swayed. These are the three options if you want to maintain the integrity of your positive mind.

Some people have the mind that taking verbal abuse makes you tougher. That is a lie. All that does is reinforce negative feelings of shame, fear and doubt. You're tough when your so secure in your happiness, pride, and confidence that it can't be shaken.

Insecurity- Worrying about things that are not determinate is another sign of insecurity. Ex: Shaq worrying about freethrows, MJ worrying about shooting too much.

There are different ways to create habits. That thru incentives and disincentives. I prefer positivity. I like my environment to be so positive that you can't help but want to be there. I don't mind cocky people because there love for themselves usually rubs off unless they are negative and put people down. Its better to do something that you want to do and create your own habits than to have someone make you do something then have habits that you dont want. When you are negative to create discipline a problem occurs, those people are usually wounded and vicious and angry. Hurt -> fear -> anger -> hate -> evil (When you get hurt you become afraid of getting hurt again and when you get afraid you become angry as a way of protecting yourself and the more you let your anger fester it becomes hate and when it becomes hate you do very bad things) BE POSITIVE!!!

When you become more positive you will Leave no stone unturned.

Why did your affirmations wear off? The words stopped evoking the emotions that they were supposed to invoke. The words are just the containers of the emotion, it is possible that containers can be empty. So it is important to meditate on your affirmations, think about what feelings are supposed to be associated with the words. It all about emotions, remember feelings are the instincts that drive us.

"It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen."(Muhummad Ali)
Remember now Ali is a muslim and muslim memorize the quran and they recite it everyday. This repetition of affirmation thing has its basis in religion. Neil Strauss in the Style life Challenge talks about a confidence ritual. This is why many confident people are religious. Everyday they go thru the same process, they are grounded in it, that raises their confidence and happiness. I know the Bible has a scripture that says Meditate on the Word day and night. You are supposed to not just go thru the ritual but you are supposed to remember what it means.

When I affirm myself I do it with overwhelming intensity. And you really have to be intense to go against you natural mindset that has accumulate over years. When I say intense think about a drill sargent yelling. You are the drill sargent yill at your self drilling your affirmations into your head. ("this woman wants me" "this woman wants me" this woman wants me and wants me fucking bad!"). Sometimes in school when a teacher wants you to get a lesson she'll make you write it 100 times, 500 times, 1000 times, 2000 times....so you dont forget. Same way with the affirmations.

What mike tyson was getting at was that he has fears when he steps into the ring and he uses that fear to motivate himself to prepare. Then when he gets in the ring he suppresses/represses those fears so much so that he cannot feel them when he is in the ring, when he is in the game.