social anxiety Archives - Inner Confidence

Embarass Yourself to Overcome Social Anxiety

One of my favorite Inner Confidence exercises is our social freedom exercises. We do things like lie down in a crowded public area, pretend to text on our phones in a crosswalk until the light turns green and we get honked at, and go to Chipotle and ask for free guacamole. Pictured left is Leverage Program moderator, doing a social freedom exercise during this year’s EuroTrip in Budapest. The point of these exercises is to embarrass yourself in public and learn to deal with whatever reaction you get.

There’s actual psychology behind it: the original cognitive-behavioral therapist Albert Ellis invented the concept in 1968 and called them shame-attacking exercises. They’re an amazingly effective way to overcome social anxiety, and for guys who want to give less of a fuck.

Most people overestimate the costs associated with making a social mistake. They think that if they appear incompetent, crazy, or obnoxious, the results will be drastic and they won’t be able to handle it.

Social freedom exercises prove that most guys’ thoughts about this are wrong. When you do the exercises, you’ll usually find that a lot of people don’t even notice or care. If you lie down in a public place, rather than being shamed, most people won’t even notice you, or at the most they’ll walk around you.

We’re all the star of our own movies, and we don’t really care what’s happening in other people’s movies. People don’t care about you as much as you think they do. They’re probably busy looking at their phones anyway.

Having intentionally awkward conversations, like asking random strangers where the nearest STD clinic is, isn’t as painful as most guys expect it to be. In fact, a lot of times these conversations are hilarious and guys walk away laughing at their newfound social freedom and lack of concern about rejection.

Knowingly violating social norms is a powerful way to overcome your fears.

It’s amazing what you get just by asking. While the point of these exercises is to increase your social freedom, some of them teach another lesson. Most people don’t ask for what they really want. They walk on eggshells, trying to avoid inconveniencing or offending others, when in reality, other people are more than happy to help out.

This morning at Coffee Bean, I asked for a discount on my coffee. The barista gave me a polite no. It didn’t work out that time, but at least I asked.

Later in the day, I took an Uber ride with what must have the world’s most mediocre driver. He decided that taking the freeway would be too efficient, so he randomly exited and doubled the length of the trip. After the ride, instead of just saying “oh well, that’s life,” I asked Uber to give me a credit for my time. It wasn’t like he was completely terrible, but hey, why not ask?

Asking paid off!

There are countless examples that arise in daily life where most people don’t ask for things they can probably get:

If you miss a credit card payment and incur a late fee, you can usually get it removed by calling and asking
If you call your cable company, you can often negotiate a lower rate by having them match a competitor’s price
If you always ask for discounts at stores and restaurants in a funny way, you’ll sometimes get them
If you’re friendly with the airline desk agent, you can get free upgrades when there’s space on the place

What other examples can you think of for developing social freedom and getting free stuff? Post in the comments below.

Why Getting Rejected Is Good

by Tyler W 1 Comment

Why is rejection so scary?

Our society does a great job of instilling shame in men. Growing up as kids, and even into our adult lives, we’re told toxic messages that can hold us back for a lifetime.

Sometimes this shame originates from the people around us. Our parents or friends tell us these messages explicitly: that guy’s a player and you shouldn’t be like that. Or they could be more subtle messages from the media and movies: in order to get a girl to like you, you need to be nice and submissive.

People mean well when they give us this kind of advice. Despite their good intentions, they miss how these messages teach men that their desires are unacceptable, and that being masculine is a bad character trait. Compound this with all the men who have grown up without a strong father figure, and things get even worse.

As a result, men today are scared. They’re scared to approach beautiful women. They’re scared to be masculine for fear of stepping on toes. They’re scared to express who they really are. They’re afraid of meeting women. They live their lives devoid of meaningful companionships, opting instead for the comforting yet numb experiences of internet porn and video games. They walk on eggshells and don’t express themselves.

Men have become deathly afraid of getting rejected by women.

You don’t have to live this way.
It’s ok to be a sexual being.
It’s ok to want to sleep with hot women.
It’s ok to want to sleep with multiple women.
It’s ok to express your desires, feelings, and fears honestly and openly.
It’s ok to be rejected.

What’s the antidote for feeling scared and weak? It’s being a man and facing your fears head-on. With dating, that means getting rejected.

Learning to deal with rejection teaches you how to be a man. Part of being a confident, masculine being is accepting that sometimes things don’t go our way, and being composed when the inevitable disappointments occur.

Connection and companionship give more purpose and meaning to our lives than anything else. You must get rejected to find and create meaningful these relationships with women. Relationships are built on vulnerability. You can’t be vulnerable without risking rejection.

The ONLY way to get better with women is to get rejected more. I wish there was a “hack” or a way around it, but sorry, there just isn’t. Robbie is better with women than anyone you know because he has been rejected more times than anyone you know. And even a guy like Robbie will only expect to connect with about 3 or 4 women out of 10 during day game.

But if there was anything that’s close to a shortcut, it’s this:

The fear of rejection hurts more than actually getting rejected.

Anxiety doesn’t exist in the present moment. Anxiety is only something you feel about the future. When you’re actually feeling it in the present, it’s only fear, which is much easier to deal with. Any amount of fear is something you can and will live through.

The pain of rejection is a short-term experience. Pain is what you experience when you push yourself outside your comfort zone. Think of the struggle of a hard workout at the gym. It’s uncomfortable while you’re experiencing it, but it goes away. You become stronger as a result.

Our minds are amazingly skilled at (wrongly) anticipating how bad it would feel to get rejected. They jump to conclusions, and imagine the worst possible scenario where everyone is watching you, and where you’ll run into the girl you approached again and be embarrassed.

Fortunately, that’s not how it goes. A girl who isn’t interested moves on and forgets about the interaction. Unless you choose to ruminate on it, you do too. You learn something you can use next time. It’s never as bad as you expect it to be.

You will always thank yourself later for being vulnerable and improving your social skills.

There is rarely a downside to being assertive and asking for what you want. The happiest, most fulfilled men are the ones who go after everything they value in life, and it’s not a coincidence that these men are the ones that women are the most drawn to.

The men who get rejected the most are the ones who succeed the most, and so getting rejected is crucial to your dating success.

Why is approaching so important for building confidence?

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

You’ve heard me say it over and over, but if you expect to get results and you’re not crushing approaches or already dating multiple women, it’s just not gonna happen.

If you wanna get good at basketball you’ve gotta take a ton of shots right? You can’t expect to show up at the court, stand around with the ball and expect to improve can you?

Well, that’s what many of you guys are doing, and then whining that you suck and the program isn’t working. That line of thinking is actually offensive to guys who have put in the work. Robbie crushed 10k approaches by the time he was in his late 20’s. Now he never has to approach anyone because he paid his dues.

Confidence isn’t a switch you flip because you feel like it. It’s something you develop over thousands of repetitions. Confidence occurs as the byproduct of developing your skills.

Here’s what you can expect in terms of objective results when you start making approaches:

1,000 approaches get most guys past anxiety.
The next 2,000 get you more comfortable being in the moment.
The next 2,000 after that get you dates with 6’s, 7’s and occasional 8’s, as long as your fashion, accent, body language and fitness are on point.
Once you hit the 5,000+ mark, it becomes almost silly to day game anymore because odds are you’re crushing social circle and night game much harder, because you have a much hotter pool of women to draw from.

“Fake it till you make it” really means perform an action repeatedly until it becomes a habit. You can’t fake an action and expect it to work long-term, but you can keep performing an action until it becomes comfortable.

Let’s take Leverage Program member Joe as a case study. I met him in 2007 at a workshop Robbie was leading in Phoenix. He didn’t sign up, and didn’t reach out again until 2014, when he signed up for the Leverage Program. He spent his first six months in the course downloading lessons into his brain and getting crushed in the group for douchey behavior. He did a great job taking the feedback without getting angry or salty. He lost some weight then grew a cool beard then approached like crazy. Now he’s consistently banging 6’s and the occasional 7+. See how that works guys?

Meaningful life change isn’t something you develop instantly as a result of being motivated. It only comes through baby steps and daily habits. You have to improve your social skills, physiological state, building relationships, and objectively achieve success with women. Focus on getting more reps, but ignore the 10,000 hour rule, because Malcolm Gladwell got it wrong.

Eventually, you’ll get to the point where you have the eye of the tiger. The eye of the tiger is an expression we use for a guy who has a lot confidence, has fucked a lot of women and isn’t intimidated by women.

When you reach this point in your game, you tend to use eye contact as your number one tool for approaching. Women will smell your confidence and you’ll notice them checking you out. You throw a seductive look their way and see how they react. If she gives you love, you walk over and just say hi. It’s often a done deal from there, granted you don’t say anything stupid.

Essentially, being an active member of the Leverage group and hitting on a TON of women will help you develop your eye of the tiger.

True confidence only comes from demonstrated performance. It’s hard to fool your subconscious mind, which is why gimmicks like NLP and positive affirmations are just a band-aid that ultimately fails.

Most guys overestimate how different they are from others. What this means is that you can simply take someone else’s path to success, and emulate it. Take the same actions that they took. Look to your mentors to build your identity. Do what they did. Do what works.

Dating With Social Anxiety

by Tyler W 1 Comment

I’ve said before that I don’t care about approach anxiety. But when does anxiety become a real problem?

When social anxiety becomes a problem, it’s because it turns into more than just a feeling of anxiety in social situations (like approach anxiety). If that’s all it was, then you could just tough out the uncomfortable feeling and force yourself be social, like what most people do when they have to speak in public.

The reason that social anxiety is a bigger problem is because it changes your actions and behaviors: you stop chasing your goals in order to avoid feeling anxious.

What is is specifically about social anxiety that causes problems? The primary factor is that it makes you avoid the possibility of being judged, and you feel anxious and avoidant in situations where you might be judged or rejected. So in social situations, instead of being assertive and showing your personality, you play it safe and don’t do anything that might risk someone disliking you.

People who don’t have social anxiety don’t see social situations as a chance to be rejected; they see these situations as a chance to express their personalities. They aren’t thinking about managing the impressions they’re making on others; they’re thinking about how to have fun and show their personalities.

Anxiety becomes a problem when it leads to avoidance. Despite what many guys think, feeling nervous when approaching a girl isn’t a problem. Guys who think they have to get over their approach anxiety before improving their dating lives are wrong. Approach anxiety isn’t a problem if you are actually approaching regularly. Approach avoidance is a problem. Let’s look at another example: imagine someone with a fear of snakes: that alone isn’t really a problem. But if they stay inside for the rest of their life because of the ridiculously low chance that they might see a snake outside, that’s where it becomes a problem. It’s not the fear that’s bad, it’s the avoidance.

Anxiety goes away when you face a situation enough: if you are afraid of spiders, being around them enough will get rid of that fear. If you are afraid of heights, going skydiving will reduce the fear. This is the one of the most firmly established principles in psychology and therapy. It’s also the only way to build lasting confidence.

Social anxiety is the same in some ways, and different in others. It’s not enough to just put yourself in social situations more; you have to risk rejection (and actually be rejected) more. But just like with spiders and heights, the more you put yourself in situations where you can be rejected, the less anxious you feel.

Albert Ellis, the founder of modern cognitive-behavioral therapy (the most effective modern therapy), developed some of the best exercises for reducing social anxiety. He called them “shame attacking exercises”, and there are countless examples you can find by a quick Google search. The idea is to purposefully put yourself in situations where you will be judged. Some examples are to attempt to pay for an item at a store when you don’t have your wallet, to go to a drug store and loudly ask for extra small condoms, or sing loudly to yourself in public.

These are entertaining ways to get used to the feeling of being evaluated, judged, or rejected, and they change the way you feel about challenging social situations. By dealing with being judged over and over, you realize that it isn’t actually that bad, and it’s something you can handle. The fear and avoidance lessen the more you do it, and over time this translates to other areas of your life.

What general ideas can you also apply to reducing your anxiety? Say more high risk/high reward things. Take bigger chances to express your personality. Don’t agree with people if you don’t actually mean it. Approach more girls and get rejected more. Discuss edgier topics. Doing all these things are more uncomfortable in the short term, but in the long term, counteract the thinking and avoidance behavior that makes social anxiety so powerful.

As with any important life change, thinking about it isn’t important. Taking action is the only scientifically proven method to reduce social anxiety. Be willing to get rejected and judged more, and social anxiety will stop holding you back.

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