Everyone has had approach anxiety (AA) at some point. That little voice in your head, or that feeling in your stomache that you get when your thinking of aproaching a woman. But there is hope... we don't have to stay cursed with this anxiety forever... no we can conquer these feelings.

How do we eliminate AA? Lets first look at the source. Aproach Anxiety stems primarily from a fear of rejection and also from a lack of confience in a given situation. Lets start with the fear of rejection, there are really two ways to deal with this, conditioning or belief system modification. The first will condition you to not be as effected by rejection and is the one we will focus on in this article. The second can be accomplished through the use of NeuroLinguistic Programing (NLP) and will be covered in more depth in another article. Next the lack of confidence in a givin situation, the easiest way to deal with this part is simple and can be summed up by the saying "Experience Breeds Confidence".

So how are we going to gain this experience without giving ourselves a heart-attack? Mystery recommends you go out 4 nights a week, 4 hours a night, 3 approaches an hour... thats roughly 50 approaches a week, and while I agree that this is good advice for increasing your game in general... I find it less then optimal for destroying that initial Approach Anxiety. The method I teach my students will also take about 3-4 hours... however it will cram about 4-6 months of approaching using the 4x4x3 method into one AA obliterating session. Also roughly 1 month work of the begining stages of attraction as an added bonus!

Ok so heres what you need to do... go to the busiest place you can in regards to foot traffic... a mall, a downtown street it doesn't much matter as long as it's busy... the busier the better. For 1 hour your going to stand there... walk around maybe a small bit, but mostly stand in the middle of all the people walking around you, smile and say "Hi" to as many of them as you can. You will likely find thata very high percentage of people will respond favorably to this... and a few will respond negatively. Hopefully you will have greated a few hundred people in that first hour (it only takes a second to say "Hi" and your not supposed to be saying anything more then that yet). Next your going to Smile, Greet with a hello or hi, and try to get them to stop while you pay them 1 compliment then ask them two questions. The questions can be anything non-invasive "Do you have the time?", "Do you know where 4th street is?", "Where did you get your shoes?". Then this part is IMPORTANT after your questions tell them to have a nice day and EJECT... this is a drill for approaching not for closing. You must keep it quick so that you can get as many approaches as possible and also so that you keep your definition of sucess for this exersize as a compliment and 2 questions.

You will not have as high of a sucess rate with this as your "Hi" excersize... but by the time you are done with this you will feel much more confident about approaching someone and asking them a question or 2 (Opinion Openers are questions), and complimenting people (many situational Openers are compliments along with a question). Also you should have encountered enough people who wouldn't even give you the time, to uderstand that when someone "rejects" you... over an innocent question (or opener) that it's because they have some personal problem... not you. (What kind of jerk won't even say "Hi" back? One you didn't want to talk to anyway).

I recommend using this approach, and then follow it with mysterys 4x4x3 method to maintain an anxiety free game... and practice the further aspects of your game!

Good advice!

I found that simply asking people for the time to be effective in diminishing Approach Anxiety. Although, I still find it quite difficult to open young people my own age. I like your advice about making a compliment and joining it with a question. I'm gonna try it, because I need to somehow protract the interactions I'm having.

I've been trying to do this:

Me: Hey, you know what time it is?
Her: 19:00
Me: Thanks. You've got a cool accent, what part of Wales are you from?
No. Do you think I sound Welsh?!
Me: Yeah. You sound very Welsh. Where are you from?
Her: Bristol
Me: Cool, you're the first person I've ever met from Bristol. HIGH FIVE. .. Guess where I'm from?
(and so on)

after I've opened, I simply try to make the conversation more personal to increase her commitment to it.

if i would do that everyone in my city would soon know me as "the crazy guy" lol

Everyone loves 'the crazy guy' I'm 'the crazy guy' almost everywhere I go and people attract to me like a magnet.

And btw there is nothing crazy about talking to people or asking for the time

In my country if i say hi to someone that i dont know he will say to me "Im sorry i dont know you" or just look at me and walk away... I've tryed this "Hi" thing few times and i got negative responses...