Inner Game is a Trap

Inner game is a trap. It’s an endless spiral of philosophies, epiphanies and mental masturbation. It’s enticing because people feel like they’re actually doing something when browsing these inner game posts; as if they’re somehow becoming more confident merely by reading about confidence.

I’m not saying inner game is unimportant- after all, none of us want to become routine monkeys with zero self-esteem. What I’m saying is reading about inner game is unimportant. No one in the history of this planet ever gained self-respect from reading a book. They might’ve felt more confident for a moment or two in the confines of their room, but the second they walk out into the real world and deal with real setbacks, they land right back at square one. So they go back home and think to themselves “that article/book/programme didn’t work- I need to find a better one.” But inner game material is so addictive precisely because it does work- but only if you stay in your room for the rest of your life. It really isn’t that hard to be confident or alpha if you’re alone.

Another problem I’ve found with focusing solely on inner game without dealing with outer game is that it paradoxically makes us less confident and secure in ourselves. If we get to the root of inner game “strategy”, it essentially boils down to: be such a great person on the inside that it radiates and shows on the outside. And once people see what a wonderful person we are, they will inevitably like us. But think about this for a second- what does it mean if people don’t like us; or worst, they actively hate us. What does that infer about our inner game? What does that infer about us as a person? If having good inner game leads to success, then failure naturally means we have poor inner game- that we are weak and worthless on the inside.

In reality, most people are not that perceptive. They take a snapshot of our appearances and behaviors to form a quick judgment all in the span of a couple minutes (and I’m being generous here). How fluidly you turn your head probably has a bigger impact on your attractiveness than the internal mappings of your sexuality. But if we’re focused only on inner game, we assume that every time we are rejected, it’s because we are rotten on the inside. That we weren’t confident enough, or fearless enough. As you can imagine, this sort of thinking only serves to weaken our inner game.

But if we incorporate an outer game perspective, then rejections begin to be less about us as a person, and more about our behaviors. We realize that the girl didn’t throw a drink in our face because we’re a certified creep ™, it was because we were exhibiting creepy behaviors (crazy eyes, rape smile, etc). Now some people might say “if you weren’t a creep to begin with, you wouldn’t be exhibiting all these creepy behaviors.” However, I personally don’t buy that argument. Firstly, there are plenty of charming people who are sex-crazed fiends on the inside. The external does not necessarily reflect the internal 100% of the time (or even most of the time). Secondly, a lot of our external behaviors are merely habits and ticks that have no bearing on our internal emotions. The man who has a habit of shuffling his feet will do so no matter how he feels- but people will always assume he’s nervous or uncomfortable. Even the smallest things such as the way you turn your head or the way you swing your arms- all these things add up to create an impression of you which may have nothing to do with who you are on the inside. But no amount of inner game is going to change that- you may feel like Gandhi internally, but if you have a habit of shifting your eyes around erratically, people will always assume you are nervous.

At the end of the day, I’ve realized that inner game material is pretty much useless in practice. It has never helped me beyond making me feel good about myself for a couple minutes. “Just taking action” didn’t help either since every time I failed, I misattributed the failure to my weak inner game which only served to make me feel even less confident. I’ve come to realize that the only thing that can give me lasting and grounded confidence is outer game. The only thing we can ever truly control is our behavior.

And having mastery over our external behavior and communications- that gives us the greatest confidence of all.