This post is for those with anxiety about approaching, being with, or talking to women. I suspect that is most of us, to some extent.

When I was younger, I often avoided going out because of fear. I knew that if I went out I was going to have to talk to people or “I’d look weird.” As if badass guys never just chill out by themselves in public.

But telling myself things like that never helped much.

To me, a large part of overcoming anxiety comes down to setting yourself up for success.

Set your goal consciously, or else your brain is navigating blindly, in a way. It’s going to be setting goals, but if you don’t set them with intention, your brain may aim for things that aren’t ideal.

For example, maybe you tell yourself you’re just going to “go out to have fun.” But in actuality you’re going out because you hope you’ll meet someone attractive. Your goal is to meet someone attractive. That is how your brain is defining success in that example.

That’s not a great girl. For one it’s entirely dependent on who shows up. Setting yourself up for success means that success does not depend on other people. Define success in a way that sets you up to win no matter what.

That means make a tangingle, realistically attainable goal to meet when you go out.

So instead of making the goal “to have fun and meet someone attractive,” try a goal like “I want to have one fun conversation with a girl.”

Unless the place is 100% dead, that’s attainable.

Think about different goals. If 10 is “go out, meet someone attractive that you really like spending time with, and take her home with you the same night,” and 1 is “walk outside and hold eye contact with someone for 2 seconds” think about where you would be on the scale before you’d start getting anxious.

It doesn’t matter where you are on the scale. As the other poster said, you can’t have a hero’s journey if there is no obstacle to overcome.

There’s no shame in getting anxious. You have a brain that’s trying to predict possible negative outcomes for you so you can avoid them. Our goal is to teach our brain that there are no negative outcomes to look out for.

The problem is, if you push yourself too hard, the emotional suffering itself is a negative outcome that your brain is going to take note of. “Last night I went out to pick up girls but I got rejected every time and it sucked” tells your brain something very similar to “I went in that forest and got attacked last time.”

You’re going to burn the feeling and scenery of the forest you got attacked in into your emotional memory. The second you see that forest’s tree line? Your amygdala brings you a knee jerk fear reaction before you can even consciously process what’s happened.

The same thing I can happen with approaching and socializing.

So what’s the solution?

Stay on the edge of anxiety, but still relatively comfortable the entire time. Gradually that edge will move. Continue to lean into it.

Maybe that means you go out with the sole goal of just sitting in a really high energy bar. Nothing else. Bring a book or a laptop and work. Bring your dog. Have an excuse like that to be there so you won’t feel awkward.

If you’re still very anxious just sitting there with no intention to even approach at all, then dial it back. Just go sit in a moderate energy environment.

When you’re trying to gauge your level of anxiety, pay attention to your heart rate, your breathing, and how tense your muscles are; those are good markers for the body’s fight or flight system. You may be nervous without even realizing it if you don’t pay attention to these things.

Continue to move the needle forward until what would make your heart race to 140 BPM now only raises it to 100. If you need to dial back how far out of your comfort zone you are sometimes, that’s fine. 2 steps forward and 1 step back is still one step forward.

Also I’d keep a journal for this type of thing. When you look back 2 months after you started and read what you were feeling, you may be encouraged by how much progress you’ve made if you kept at it.

I hope that helps the guys who struggle with anxiety. A lot of it is stuff I learned in therapy so that’s something to keep in mind as an option.