We all know the cliches about how you fail your way to success, or how you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. It’s common knowledge in our culture that the way you get better at something is by making mistakes.

But is it really? A lot of guys don’t realize that they’re looking for dating coach because they’re looking for permission to make mistakes. They might “know” that they need to make mistakes to get better, but they don’t actually believe it. They get a coach because they want someone else to tell them it’s ok to mess up.

One area where this shows itself is when guys are too afraid to lead the interaction because they might make a mistake.

Leading the interaction is when you put out a feeler to where you want her to get to next. It’s making a statement or taking an action to get her to the next step in wherever you want to take the interaction. Then you wait to see when she gets there. If she goes in the opposite direction, then you have to readjust to match her vibe and then try again.

This means you’re going to be putting yourself out there and giving yourself countless opportunities to be rejected. When you walk up to a woman and say your first statement to her, she has the option to reject you. When you continue talking with her, she has the option to end the interaction. When you ask her to move to a different part of the bar, she has the option of declining.

Every time you lead the interaction, you run the risk of getting rejected. You run the risk of making a mistake. And even though guys think they know that they need to make mistakes to improve, they still fear leading the interaction because making mistakes like these are scary.

There are no guarantees that what you’re attempting will go well for anything worth doing in life. If something is completely guaranteed, it won’t make you feel any better about yourself. It won’t feel like an accomplishment.

The only real certainty in life is that if you work hard, you’ll eventually get opportunities for more success. But it won’t come the way you expect it to, and you have to make mistakes along the way.

The only way to improve your social awareness is by taking risks and getting it wrong. Often.

Social awareness is the ability to make the people around you feel understood and comfortable connecting with you. If you don’t make wild guesses about what others are feeling, you’re never going to get it wrong. It’s literally impossible to start getting it wrong without getting it right first.

I first learned concept this when I was in school to become a therapist. When we were learning how to convey empathy to our patients, we were told to guess a word for the feeling we think our patient is experiencing. Of course, everyone was concerned that we may guess the wrong thing. This is when I learned that we need to say the wrong thing at first. The only alternative is to not say anything, and that prevents you from improving.

Dating is about managing ambiguity and having good social awareness. Most of what we do with relationships and dating is subconscious. This is why you feel approach anxiety despite rationally knowing that it’s nonsense.

Remember that everything in the interaction is about her. The goal is to get to a point where you can mirror her communication and emotions without underdoing it or overdoing it. But the only way to get to that point is by underdoing it and overdoing it often.

Commit to making mistakes, because it’s the only way to improve your social awareness and learn how to lead the interaction.