The Power of Language in Your Mind
Hey, I’ve been reading some more of the mail you guys are sending in, and the great questions you’ve got about approaching women in the day…
One of the biggest question that guys have is simply this:
“How do I get rid of my approach anxiety?”
Now that’s a huge question. In fact, it was so big that it inspired me to create a whole system to get you past it. I can’t cover it all in one email…
BUT I am going to target one question that focuses on one part of this problem. I think you’re going to get a lot out of this if you pay close attention…
So, what is the fastest way to force the anxiety of approaching out? How do I fight your way past your fear?
Let me explain it like this…
As you already know, I’m a student of language, because we all THINK in language.
I grew up in America, and I speak English, and all my thoughts are in English.
So when I think, I’m limited to the concepts that the English language is built on.
If this sounds weird, just think about it this way: In English, we put adjectives (the words that describe something) in FRONT of the word we are describing.
So if I say I’ve got a LONG…
…
HARD
…
CRUSTY
…
OLD
sandwich roll…
What did you think as you were waiting to get to the “sandwich roll” part?
Your mind had time to make up a lot of stuff there, didn’t it?
And for many of the languages of the world, adjectives DO NOT come first, so people who think with the nouns first don’t imagine the same things.
Okay, this is a lot of what “NLP” or “neuro-linguistic programming” is based on.
So let’s get back to your question about “forcing the anxiety out” and “fighting past your fear.”
What kind of images do those words create in your brain?
Force… Fight…
All you see is CONFLICT. Struggle!
And what you end up doing is FIGHTING something instead of learning how to work WITH its energy.
This is the foundational principle of a great many Martial Arts.
When force meets force, you have a battle of wills.
AND – when you think in terms of conflict and fighting – what is it you must assume to believe that you have a fight?
You must believe you have an ENEMY.
In other words, if I believe I’ve got a fight on my hands, I simply MUST have an opponent – an adversary to fight.
When you assume you have to fight “approach anxiety” you actually give your enemy more power over you.
You start to imagine your enemy in all kinds of detail. You see his armor, and his weapons, and his intimidating battle stance…
You hear his words of doubt whispering in your ear…
You feel him holding you back when you see a woman you want to talk to…
Look, I’ll be the first to admit that this fear is VERY real. You DO feel it, and it does exist. I’m not saying it’s a figment of your imagination.
But what if the fear had nothing to do with the approach?
What if it was something else you could actually control?
This falls under the category of self-limiting beliefs, because we’re giving more power to our “enemy” by pretending that he’s something we need to fight.
What if your Approach Anxiety was clown? Dressed in a ridiculous outfit?
And he’s carrying around a bag of pretzels that he keeps pushing up his nose…
And every time he tries to talk you out of approaching, he rips a wicked fart…
What do you think of your enemy now?
Not so scary, huh?
In fact, he’s downright laughable.
Here’s the most important step you can take to get past your approach anxiety:
STOP ARGUING *FOR* YOUR LIMITATIONS
Let me give you another metaphor to work with here…
When I was first starting to learn guitar, I had all kinds of reasons why I thought I’d suck at the guitar.
– My fingers were thin…
– My hands were weak…
– I was confused by all the frets and strings and combinations…
– I couldn’t possibly play as good as those guys I heard on the radio…
As I started to learn and apply myself, I found that playing guitar was actually pretty easy. All my perceived limitations were all wrong.
– My thin fingers served me because I could play complicated scales and chords easier than if my fingers were “normal” sized…
– My hands got stronger in just 2 weeks of playing…
– I spent study hall in school just re-writing the scales on the fretboard so that I would memorize them faster…
And so on.
What I see is that guys will argue for – and give all their power over to the belief that is holding them back – their own fear of approaching…
Arguing for your limitations sounds like this:
– “But… I think that women are scared of men… they don’t want us to approach them…”
– “But … what about the women that just want us to approach to get compliments?”
– “But … I think that women are just being polite when guys approach…”
– “But what about…?”
– “But… But… But…”
The list goes on and on.
If you want to, you can keep giving your anxiety more and more power by finding reasons to believe in it even more… KEEP coming up with those “Buts.”
Or you can accept that arguing for your enemy is what’s really holding you back, and just agree to not fuel it with any more of your fear.
Can you imagine how that would change your perception of the fear?
Stay tuned…
