Hey guys!

So I gotta admit, right now the idea of approaching a girl on the street and chatting to her scares the crap out of me. Even going up to a girl who's at the same party I'm at and saying 'Hi' is bloody scary, and I can only do it after a bunch of drinks.

I've read a lot of advice on approaching that basically amounts to 'just do it' - Unfortunately this method isn't working for me, as I have been reading about this stuff for years and I have always failed to 'just do it'. I've also read a lot about changing my mindset on approaching, but unfortunately my mindset doesn't seem to want to change. So this time round I'm going to try a different method, based around the idea of progressive desensitisation.

The basic idea is that you start off real easy (e.g. asking cashiers / waitresses / shop assistants how their day is going), and slowly work all the way up to asking girls out (scary! But don't think about that bit yet.) Doing it this way means that you can tackle your anxiety one step at a time, each day pushing your boundaries just a little (but not too much!)

Doing it this way also means that each time you complete a mission, you will feel good about the progress you've made, which will hopefully give you a bit of extra energy for the next days mission.

So I'm going to try this myself. Because it's a little scary, and because I could use some extra accountability, I would love if you guys joined in as well.

 

How this will work:

  • I'll post the first mission in about 24 hours
  • I'll then post each following mission every 48 hours. This should give you enough time to finish the mission, plus gives you a bit of leeway in case you fall behind and need to catch up.
  • Each day, once you've finished the mission, post a comment in the thread and share your experiences. It will give you a chance to reflect, and brag about your improvement =).
  • If anybody thinks they need a little extra help with accountability, shoot me a direct message and I'll bug you to keep doing the missions / keen an eye on whether you have done them or not.
  • If you feel unable to progress to the next mission, do the earlier ones again until you feel comfortable moving on

Even if no one else joins in, I'm gonna to keep posting and talking about my experiences - as I said, I could use the accountability.

Look forward to you joining me!

(P.S. This idea came from a post I found on postmasculine.com. I'm going to base the 10 missions around the ones provided there as examples.)

 

The missions: