Even though I’ve been a dating coach for a while now, most nights when I go out I still get approach anxiety. After talking to the other love systems dating coaches, I’ve found that most do. I’ve found writing out goals, a really great process that helps me overcome approach anxiety and additionally helps me implement new pieces to my game easily. People think they are not improving because they are telling brain what is supposed to do faster than it can implement. This leads to frustration and causes you to lose interest in going out because your brain overestimates how many attempts it has made.
On Braddock’s suggestion I read Brian Tracey’s Book Psychology of Achievement, which has some amazing sections on goal setting, which I’ve applied to game. Also from Braddock I stopped reading everything I could get and started spending 2 hours in-field implementing for every hour I spent reading which we’ll cover later. I actually started setting and measuring goals in this way in another area of my life before I read Brian Tracey’s book to overcome limiting beliefs. Before game and before learning to work out properly I used to be extremely shy, and extremely skinny, and I thought I would live and die that way because I started so many workouts and did not seem to make any real progress in strength or weight gains. I figured I was stuck being a twig. I’d learn everything about a new workout program workout for what seemed like months and my bench would maybe go from 85lbs to 100lbs. I would get frustrated at the paltry gains and give up.
I had stopped working out and my body weakened back to an 85lb bench based on the belief that I just couldn’t get big. Then I joined a sport that I really enjoyed but that requires a lot of strength and conditioning (boxing). As a team we tested and recorded how much we could lift to get a baseline on where we were starting. Based on this we used formulas to determine weekly goals and a final goal based on 3 total months of training. As usual I didn’t seem to be making any gains… maybe 5lbs more than normal based on this new system so I was up to 105lbs on bench. But then I looked back through my workout log and realized I had only worked out 12 times in 3 weeks. Which comes out to 6.5lbs per week, putting me on track to go up around 80lbs in 3 months to 165 or nearly double where I started.
By writing out my goals my actual progress was put into perspective, normally negative beliefs would cloud my judgment, but by writing my goals down I realized I was making huge gains, even though negative thoughts were trying to convince me I had been working out for 2 months, it was only 3 weeks. Seeing the FACT that I had gone to the gym only 12 times and progressed faster than my goal of 5lbs per week made me even MORE enthusiastic about hitting the gym and I ended up beating all my goals at the end of 3 months.
Many times people starting out in game or even guys who have been out there for a while forget their baseline. They only think in terms of sex as a final motive, “Oh, I went out and didn’t get laid again… I’m not getting any better even after half a year”. But in reality they’ve only been going out for 2 months and even though it feels like they are doing 20 sets per night 4 nights a week, they have actually only gone out 1.5 nights and opened maybe 2-3 sets per night on average (including the nights they got huge anxiety and just stood there all night). So all told 12 times and 24-36 sets… not a lot.
How do we overcome this distorted feedback?
Hopefully it’s obvious by now, but you need to WRITE out QUANTITATIVE goals… I know what you’re thinking, “But Helicase, I don’t need to write it down I can just think it”. You’re doing it wrong if you’re not writing them down. You are not getting the maximum benefit, and it may help you for a night, but you will forget it. Genius’ do things repeatedly, they do something once and their brain records it and it is set as a default for next time. This is how naturals get good; their brain is able to repeat the process every time. YOU can NOT do this, or I would have seen you at Harvard this past weekend stealing girls from me.. (And I didn’t because if I did I would have gotten your info, learned from you and broken your game down to teach to students.)
But there is an easy way to replicate what genius’ do. WRITE IT DOWN.
Alright let’s get this boiling:
Write out quantitative goals.
Quantitative goals have NUMBERS… (re-read this 3 times and attach it to goals)
i.e. I want to approach 10 sets tonight, I want to do 3 warm up sets
So the basic structure that I use and that really helped students this weekend in Boston was to set up a total number of sets they wanted to open including warm ups. And also include the number of times they were going to use certain transitions (i.e. Good girl bad girl 5 times – & – Finger Length Routine 5 times.) on the first night and number of times they were going to use a specific routine (i.e. handshake routine 5 times and Body guard role-play 5 times). You can also set the goal of “I’m going to learn x routine by using it every single set for 2 nights, 10 sets per night:
1. Write Long and Short Term Goals
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- Short Term:
- Detailed below in number 2, basically what you’ll refer to on a nightly basis
- Long Term:
- Take your short-term goals and decide how many times you want to accomplish your short-term goal.
- *Example*: Let’s say your short-term goal is to open 10 sets per night: Goal: Open 10 Sets Per Night for 10 nights by going out 2 times per week for 5 weeks. 100 Approaches total.
- Completing your short-term goal 10 times by going out 2 nights per week for 5 weeks is your long-term goal.
- Short Term:
2. Writing good warm up goals: Warm up EVERY NIGHT (credit Braddock). We want to use warm up sets to GRADUALLY increase the amount of social pressure we’re putting on ourselves. Start with the easiest people to talk to and work up to the hardest. It’s just like a warm up when you work out, Arnold could bench 500lbs but he always warmed up with the bar and slowly worked his way up to that weight. So think of some people who are easy to talk to ________________________________? “Hey how’s your night going?” is something I ask probably 5-10 people before I approach the first girl in the bar. I usually buy gum and chat with the clerk chat with my cab driver, chat with the door guy about the venue or weather, girls in line, the list goes on and on.
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- Store clerks, cabbies, random people on the street
- Guys who work at the venue (casual convo)
- Guys who are just hanging out but don’t work there (casual convo)
- Girls who work there (light compliments & teases)
- Girls who DON’T work there (causal convo and light game)
f. **An example** 3 warm up sets: 1 male worker, 2 girls You need to include numbers for everything, 3 warm-ups is NOT good enough.
g. I also start with the easiest things to say: functional questions: how’s your night? Do you know what time it is? Do you know where x,y,z is? Then move to something harder like Light compliments: Cool Shoes man, Cool Shirt man, Cute shoes, etc. Then finally move into openers and teasing.
3. Set goals for NON warm up approaches.
a. If you’re starting out be realistic about your current experience, i.e. take a good baseline. If you’ve never gone out before don’t try to do 20 sets your first night. What is a good goal? Take your current baseline and add 50% so if you’re at 4 per week set the goal to do 6 approaches this week (50% of 4 =2 4+2=6 . And 9 the next, 14 the next and 20 the next etc. Multiply what you’re currently doing by 1.5 you’ve got your new goal.
b. The KEY here is to take an accurate baseline of what you’re ACTUALLY doing. The brain likes to distort reality to protect your ego. In food studies people skewed the amount they thought they ate by HUGE percentages so they could avoid responsibility for their weight. So be brutally honest with yourself if you want to make real progress. GO OUT AND ACTUALLY RECORD THE NUMBER
4. How do I use this to add new pieces to my game the smart and efficient way?
a. Setting goals for number of approaches is great if you’re learning to open and/or trying to get over early night jitters, but what if most of your sets are hooking? GREAT! You should still set goals for the night, but if you’ve got opening and transitioning mastered, Start setting goals for how many times you’re going to use a specific piece of material.
b. So let’s say you’re like me and you’re adding dating coach Braddock’s Take-aways and Boundaries & DaHunter’s Sexual Hoops to your game. My goal is to open 6 sets per night, and use take-aways in 3 of them and to use sexual hoops in 3 of them. Having this written down keeps me excited about approaching. Instead of thinking oh what if she blows me out I’m focused on… I really want to try out sexual-hoops, I really want to practice my take-aways.
c. Another example when you’re getting past the goals of opening and transitioning would be “use the marriage role-play in 4 sets tonight, and ask for phone numbers in at least 3 sets”. Even if you don’t have the perfect opportunity to ask for a number forcing yourself to ask prepares you for when you do have a great set in the future.
5. Keeping Track. The end of your goals should be a space labeled RESULTS. Write down how many sets you did, and how many times you implemented a specific skill you’re trying to learn. If you keep getting stuck remember where you went wrong and think of what you could have said or done because when it comes up again your brain will default to what you wrote and you will improve like crazy!
Writing all of these goals down and referring back to them will help keep you focused on building solid game from the beginning of the emotional progression model to the end. Mastering each step then adding the next is the fastest way to learn game and setting and recording your goals is the best way to hold yourself to it, keep it fun, and see how fast you improve.
Why does this help so much? Because the brain is a goal seeking entity and by setting small goals you get a shot of dopamine every time you check one off. Setting small goals like this will turn learning game into a slightly less habit-forming version of crack. You will have something to be happy about every night, this changes you from a glass half empty guy, straight into a Glass is overflowing guy.
I learned most of this from Braddock and DaHunter as well as Brian Tracey. We tried it out at Mr. M’s last bootcamp and it really seemed to help students stay on track and not get lost. And remember for every hour spent reading material spend 2 hours in the field.
Goal 1: Write out quantitative Goals for 1 Month.
Goals:
Results:
Have fun,
-Helicase
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