Just wanted to hear some other people's opinion on this.

I know approach anxiety doesn't really go away (and the ultimate solution is to "just do it"). My question is not how to eliminate the fear, but rather: how to minimize the time it takes you to do your first few opens/approaches?

For me personally, I know I'll eventually work up the nerve to open if I just keep trying with baby steps, but the problem is this can sometimes take a long ass time. Sometimes I can do it quickly, but at other times it can take me half an hour (or more).

Some things that have helped me:

- 1) If I'm going out with a wing, I'll usually open faster (because of the added pressure of not wanting to look lame in front of him).

- 2) If I've been going out / approaching hardcore for a few consecutive days, I'll tend to (not always, but generally) open faster because of the macro-momentum and the normalizing of talking to strangers.

These are decent strategies, but not really sustainable in my opinion (you won't ALWAYS have a wing next to you and you won't ALWAYS be able to go out / approach for hours on end every day).

Surprisingly, I notice that opening every day (minimum 1-2 times) DOESN'T really help me to do the first few sets any faster. Some days I do it fast and on others it's damn near impossible to get the ball rolling...

My gut feeling is that there's no real solution to this and I'll just have to accept the initial fear and that it's going to take however long it takes before I actually take action.

Thoughts/experience?