Be Yourself
The REAL Truth Behind the “Just Be Yourself” Hype
Have you ever heard the advice “Just be yourself” when it comes to dating and attracting women?
You hear it in many different ways out there, some good, some well-meaning but horribly damaging to your game.
Part of what I teach to men is HOW to be you without being the dorky, unattractive you. That might sound like “be yourself,” but it’s not the same.
The fact is that there are two different “you”s in there.
You #1: Is the awkward, anxious, insecure, poorly presented guy.
You #2: Is the cool, relaxed, confident, polished, Alpha Man.
Now, you can reconcile these, and I’m going to tell you more about this in a minute, but the problem comes when others are telling you to adopt a bunch of personality traits or behaviors that are too incongruent with your SELF-IMAGE.
You see, the big revelation you need to know is that you will only succeed to the level of your current SELF-IMAGE. How you see yourself determines what you’re able to actually accomplish.
As a friend of mine once said, “In a struggle between grit-your-teeth perseverance and your self-image, your self-image will win EVERY time.”
Sure, you can bulldog it for a while, but it becomes exhausting and taxing on your nervous system. The fact is that if it’s not FUN in some way for you, odds are that you will NOT continue to do it. The pain barrier MUST be broken through QUICKLY.
In the short term, you may have to ‘just do it,’ but long-term change requires that you alter your image of yourself to make lasting changes.
So let’s get back to the “Just Be Yourself” fallacy. Here’s the Truth, as I see it:
– You must adopt new habits and new behaviors to your lifestyle to turn the Unattractive You #1 into the Cool You #2.
This is simply a process of becoming more socially aware. It starts with projecting the parts of your personality that are attractive but hidden, as well as snuffing out those parts of your personality that are UNattractive and obvious.
– The new habits and behaviors you adopt cannot be in complete contradiction to your current self-image (or too big a gap) or your mind will reject them, like an organ transplant gone bad.
– On the other hand, if you try to be TOO much like yourself and you don’t get the success you are told you ought to get by being “yourself,” your mind starts to reject YOU as being inadequate. And your self-esteem plummets – FAST.
So where the hell is the middle ground?
It’s all in your head.
Chances are, you’ve done both of these strategies with mixtures of success and failure. You’ve probably been “yourself,” and you’ve probably also used a lot of someone else’s “techniques” to get you into the frame of the “pickup artist.”
The key here is simply making sure that you use the techniques and advice given as a MODEL – an example of behavior that can work effectively – AND – use yourself as the frame on which to build your New You. (Call it “You, Version 2.0”)
Remember this is a MODEL, not an IMPERSONATION. Impersonations are funny and fake. Modeling is intelligent application of a real-world example.
Big difference.
So in order to be yourself and still improve, what has to happen eventually is this:
– You use some of the pickup techniques out there in a way that is congruent to your own personality – while being careful to not dismiss something just because you’ve never tried it before.
– As you use them, you find ways of integrating the beliefs of this model INTO YOURSELF. It’s no longer “fake” or “weird” because you UNDERSTAND application and have integrated the model into your personality. Now it’s becoming REAL.
The reality is that for you to change and improve your skills with women, you must EXPAND your current self.
This is commonly known as “growing.”
There is only growing or dying. There is no such thing as sitting still.
If it was simple and easy and comfortable, everyone would be doing it. But they’re not. So there’s your advantage.
Are you willing to expand your self-perception? Are you ready to grow beyond your current self-limiting beliefs?
Are you ready to be all that you can be?
Then it’s time to get busy.
Learn how to be your BEST self.
– Carlos Xuma
