I had 3 old beliefs that weren't helping me:

1) I used to have an identity as a 'PUA', and that made me put pressure on myself to impress girls and I did worse.

2) I used to want to make a lot of friends, and this caused me to give off a desperate vibe, as well as drop my standards and make friends with a lot of wrong people.

3) I used to want everyone to like me. If I spoke to 10 people, I wanted all 10 to like me. This caused me to be more nervous around people, and do worse socially.

These 3 worked against me, and made things harder. Then I went through some changes:

1) I no longer have an identity as a 'PUA'. My identity is a writer, and meeting girls is just a hobby I don't spend more than 6 hours a week on.

2) I don't want to make a lot of friends anymore, because I read some statistics that said the average adult only has 3 to 8 friends. I also read of research that said a person can only be really close emotionally to a maximum of 15 people. (A person can be emotionally attached to more than 15 people, but he or she won't be as close to them as the 15 closest people. But a lot of people don't get to having more than 15 friends). So I decided to only have 15 friends and cut out everyone else. This led to me having higher standards for the people in my life. But I was also no longer as desperate to meet people or make friends. This caused me to be more relaxed and do better socially.

3) I have come to terms that not everyone will like me. I can learn all the social skills and techniques in the world, but I still won't get 10 out of every 10 people I talk with to like me. There will always be people that don't like me. It doesn't mean I'm a failure. Even celebrities like Brad Pitt and George Clooney have people who don't like them. I don't think there is anybody on the planet who can get everyone to like them.

Once I had these 3 belief changes, I noticed I started doing a lot better in social situations. As in I was more confident, less nervous in talking to people, and gave off a different vibe that made people like me more. Has anyone else experienced something similar?