Approaching Women – Approach Anxiety

There is hardly a man among us who hasn’t experienced some form of what we call “approach anxiety” in his life. It’s that fear of walking up to a woman and being shot down in your tracks.

It’s a normal fear but there are some concrete ways to stomp it out and take away any power it has over you and what you do. Ridding yourself of this anxiety will make approaching women feel natural and easy.

Let’s take a look at some of the realizations about approach anxiety that have freed me from its grip:

Approaching Women Anxiety REALIZATION 1: It is a built-in and cognitive response.

What that means is that we were basically brought up to be wary of people we don’t know. Some people think that it may be instinctive or self-preservation behavior. I’ll get to that in a moment.

But we are conditioned as children to be wary of people we don’t know. “Stranger Danger” was an attempt to keep kids safe, but the reality is that strangers do NOT do the majority of abductions.

But I don’t think that we are born to be wary of strangers. I think realizing that approach anxiety may not be an evolutionary instinct to survive allows us to let it go.

Approaching Women Anxiety REALIZATION 2: It doesn’t matter why you have it.

Everyone is worried about why they have approach anxiety. Well, really it doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. Don’t get caught up in the therapy trap where you have to figure out what happened in our past to make us the way we are. Who cares?

It is more important to figure out how to move past the anxiety.

In this case, the only thing that matters are results. The ability to leave the anxiety behind is all that counts.

Approaching Women Anxiety REALIZATION 3: Approach Anxiety is not worth all the power, time, and energy we give it.

Don’t look at your fears as this overwhelming, all-powerful deity that controls you. Take away that power. Laugh at it. It’s that same idea of imagining everyone in the audience naked before you give a speech. Take away the power you think others — or something – has over you.

When you’re approaching women, you can’t let your fears take you over.

Approaching Women Anxiety REALIZATION 4: Don’t give the anxiety more power by fighting against it.

Studies in psychology show us that the more you fight something, the more power you give it. The theory is that you are approaching something in a negative way. Instead, approach it in a positive way.

For instance, start becoming a person who is curious, open, and genuinely interested in talking to others.

This tool – adopting this type of behavior — has been my most successful one in conquering approach anxiety.

Approaching Women Anxiety REALIZATION 5: You can overcome approach anxiety with cognitive methods.

Stomp that bitch in the dirt by breaking down what is causing that anxiety and fear by thinking those emotions through and destroying them.

Approaching Women Anxiety REALIZATION 6: Think about giving instead of getting to destroy approach anxiety.

Once we stop focusing on all the things we can GET from a woman and start looking at ways to create value for her with nothing expected in return, the anxiety vanishes.

None of these are overnight fixes, but these realizations should help you destroy your approach anxiety and fear and allow you to start approaching women with ease.