The Ultimate Guide to Overcoming Approach Anxiety

There’s no man who hasn’t yet experienced that tense feeling in the upper chest when you see a hot girl. The feeling that stops you from going up to talk to her. This is approach anxiety. Even the best seducers get this feeling from time to time.

From Approach Anxiety to Approach Excitement

Although you will always have missed opportunities (it’s human), you learn to reframe approach anxiety into approach excitement instead. This is the feeling of excitement that the girl you’re talking to could soon become your new girlfriend, lover or friend with benefits. If this is your focus, instead of the potential rejection, then you’ll enjoy the interaction a lot more. To the newbie, approaching girls can seem scary. But with some experience, you start seeing it as fun.

In Set Anxiety vs Approach Anxiety

The anxiety of the approach is somewhat similar to in-set anxiety. This refers to that nervous feeling you get while talking to a new girl. The balls of steel you need to approach, will also help you stay relaxed and chilled during the interaction. In-set anxiety gradually disappears as you become more experienced with women. On my own behalf, nowadays, I basically never get nervous while talking to women. Although of course I used to – when I was new to seduction.

On the other hand, approach anxiety still haunts experienced players at times. If someone claims to be the greatest player in the world, and that he NEVER feels approach anxiety. Then he’s lying. You get better at processing and reframing your approach anxiety gradually, so that it doesn’t hold you back in life. But it never completely disappears.

Getting Approach Momentum

Obviously, if you approached one girl, the second becomes easier, third even easier and so on. You gradually shake off your anxiety as you go out to approach women. In the same way, if you’ve been approaching women consistently every day for a week or two, it eventually becomes like second nature. You almost forget that you once struggled with approach anxiety. But if you have a long lay-off from approaching due to e.g. being in a monogamous relationship, then it may take a while to get going again.

Similarly, if you only approach a girl e.g. every second or third day, you’ll feel the approach anxiety stronger than you would if you approached daily.

Seduction requires a Social Mindset

Often, the problem is that in our careers, we work on computers. Then all of a sudden you see a hot girl, and she is not a computer. You have to interact with her on a social and emotional level. So it requires a different mindset and mode of thinking.

If you have a social career such as a waiter, a medical doctor seeing patients, or anything else that requires human interaction, then you have an advantage. You are already used to conversations with strangers in your day to day. Only difference is that it’s a different mode of communication. It changes from a professional chat, to a social chat, and sometimes on a date it’ll also turn into a sexual chat. You need to be able to switch back and forth depending on who you’re talking with and what the circumstances are.

Nevertheless, you will freely start approaching women if you start “wanting it as badly as you want to breathe when your head is held underwater”.

The environment is a factor

When faced with approach anxiety, it’s helpful to get into social flow state by doing game in a busy environment where there are plenty of women around. In this case, it would be easier to find someone to approach easily. However, let’s say you go out while still feeling stifled from e.g. your day’s work, and you approach in a quiet small town shopping area. Now you are gonna have to push yourself quite hard if you see that one attractive girl walking past you. If she’s gone then who else will you approach? It’s a lot of pressure if you don’t have any social momentum going for you.

But if you are in a busy area, you could simply approach by giving yourself a little nudge here or there. There’s always another girl if you miss an approach in a busy street. Besides, the human mind responds better to baby-steps and small nudges as opposed to huge leaps of faith. However, if you genuinely only have this small town mall where you can approach, then you’d simply have to throw yourself into the deep end and crash and burn (if necessary). Smash your ego. Do it. It’s good for your spirit.

The next 5 seconds rule

In my own experience the worse case of approach anxiety is when I go about my normal day to day and suddenly out of nowhere, I notice a cutie either walking my way or sitting somewhere. It caught me off-guard. My mindset was way-off. I should be in the confident approach-ready mindset, but my awareness is drifting to the bills, the grocery list and what to eat for dinner. Thus with the next 5 seconds rule, you stay aware of the fact that anything can happen in the next 5 seconds. Thus you choose your mindset to take this into account.

It means that you always expect a hot chick to walk right in front of you in the next second or two. Because, let’s face it, even on a day that reminds you of the great trek through the desert, it can happen. You should always be approach ready. But if you walk in an empty hallway or barren street, and your thoughts are elsewhere, then it’s gonna be much more difficult to switch your mindset AFTER you see that hot chick appear out of nowhere. This is when you’ll get that tense upper chest anxiety, you don’t want this.

Instead adopt your confident posture, head up, shoulders back, walk slower, have full awareness of the environment around you. Smile inwardly to yourself. Be calm and centered inside. Firmly grounded in the present moment. Now you’re a beast and you can even approach a lion with your bare hands 🙂   (though let’s hope you never have to). It’s the next 5 seconds rule – be approach ready at all time.

Do the first approach. Do it.

Whatever you do, get the first approach out of the way. If you have any problem in this regard, maybe it’s a quiet day, or you didn’t get enough sleep, then talk to the servers at the take away joint or to the supermarket cashier. Simply get used to opening your mouth and saying something.

Affirmations can help in the long-run. But for the girl you see in the next hour, it won’t help to say to yourself repeatedly “I am confident, I can approach anything”. The reason is that in the short term it’ll only remind you of the problem, and make it worse more than anything.

Moreover, sure you can cluck like a bird in a busy street to try to overcome your shyness and expand your comfort zone. But why don’t you do something useful and approach that chick instead. If you put yourself in meaningful challenging situations like making presentations at your local Toastmasters club, or doing improvisation classes, then your social skills will improve. Otherwise, join local Meetups. Being social is only a good thing. It will loosen you up to also approach chicks and overcome your approach anxiety.

Immerse Yourself

If you are the type of guy working and studying 16 hours a day, then of course you will have approach anxiety and communication problems with the opposite sex. So the advice is be a sociable person, and you’ll automatically have an easier time with women. In addition, meet PUA’s and immerse yourself in PUA lairs and PUA coaching. Immersion leads to success. If you are immersed in the right community, it’ll be the opposite of a circle of alcoholic, drug-addicted friends.

You take on the habits of those you associate with. Thus if your circle doesn’t hesitate to approach, you’ll also have much less anxiety towards women. And of course, cut off the negative social circles. Seduction is also about self-improvement and being your best self. Cut off hard-drug addicts and alcoholics – send them to rehab.

Lastly, get enough sleep the previous night before you go out to approach. It’ll only make things a lot easier for you. Although it shouldn’t stop you from approaching even if you only got 4 hours of sleep.

Motivational tricks

Further motivational tricks include giving a friend money. Then, he can keep it if you don’t approach a girl that day, or four girls. Otherwise commit to give the money to a charity for every approach you miss, or for not reaching your target in girls you wanna meet that day. Other than that, meditation and mindfulness can take your mind off the fear of approaching and focus on the fun of the interaction instead. This’ll also help you be more outcome independent. Having a good mindset is helpful, along with positive self-talk and enthusiasm. Catch your negative self-talk, without forgetting that you do have areas of improvement in your game.

A last thing I’d include here is to avoid a bad diet with too much white sugar, soda, and junk food. Be well-fed and healthy, then you’ll come across as more attractive, and have more control of your mindset when approaching women. I have a theory that bad nutrition can keep you in an anxious and fear-struck mindset. Although let’s admit, some fears are necessary for our own survival. However, remind yourself that it’s not the tiger in the woods you’re chasing, or that’s chasing you, which is the origin of this built-in primordial fear of approaching women. The fear you’re feeling is the excitement of meeting someone new, who… who knows? May even be your new girlfriend.

Lastly, if you are stressed to death simply to leave your house to go meet girls, then have the mission to simply go out and get a smoothie instead. And the approaching you can see as a bonus. Remember low pressure works better in meeting women. Only after you’ve “overcome” your approach anxiety with one girl, can you go out and tell yourself, “today I’ll approach 10 women”.

Social Freedom Exercise

Let us finish off with an idea that is potentially the opposite of approach anxiety – social freedom. This means talking to that girl you find hot, wherever she may be, and whomever she may be with. Like everything, this idea can be abused, e.g. trying to justify being free enough to steal or do drugs. But when it comes to meeting women, are you committed to social freedom?

When you are in that situation where you must approach or flinch and self-reject, what will you do? It is best to see this choice as a reflex action, where you must act before thinking. Approach her before you think about approaching her. In this way the ego (the part that worries about rejection) can’t get in the way.

For tomorrow, or next time you’re outside, I want you to practice social freedom at least once. By talking to a woman you won’t normally talk to in a situation you’d normally not approach. Post your experience in the comments section below..

The foolproof way to overcome your approach anxiety, is to buy coaching. I’ll put you into sets with girls. Point you which girls to talk to. Tell you what to say. In a low pressure environment. Use the contact form to schedule coaching.

What are your thoughts on Approach Anxiety? Why do you think so many guys have this sticking point in the PUA community? Post your questions and tips below!