How did you overcome approach anxiety, hesitation and stop overthinking before approaching someone?

Ego-Waffle0824 · 2026-05-11T02:05:47+00:00

Exposure helps. But the big thing that helped me was learning to be ok with the negative outcome and developing an abundance mentality. I used to be too caught up in my head worrying about what to do and afraid of making the wrong move. It caused a lot of stress and panic and made me feel like I was walking on eggshells. Reading PUA seduction advice did not help and actually made the problem worse for me because I was so focused on the small details and fearing messing up that I couldn’t look at the big picture.

Eventually, I learned about the abundance mentality and it allowed me to just breathe and give myself permission to fuck it up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still trying and doing my best because I obviously want the position outcome to take place. But giving myself permission to bomb the interaction and realize that I didn’t need to be perfect to be successful was just what I needed to relax my mind, get out of my head and give it my best shot

becomesharp · 2026-05-11T02:54:47+00:00

20-50 approaches per week

Approach as SOON as you see them

Go in without expectation

Success isnt they like you. Success is you walked up to them and opened

Remind yourself that you cannot predict what's going to happen in the interaction before you walk up so there's no point in pretending that you can

If you cant approach at all, bring a friend or a wing and give them $200 in $20 bills. Tell them they give you $20 back each approach you do, but every time you take more than 5 or 10 seconds to approach, they keep one of your $20s. If this doesnt scare you, make them $100 bills instead of $20.

ImpossibleWaiting · 2026-05-11T09:43:39+00:00

You force your legs to move, then you force your mouth to say hi. Last week I cold approached an extremely attractive alt girl by forcing myself out of the bus (it wasn't my stop). Talked to her for a few minutes about herself and her style.

This approach consisted of three main beliefs:

- I'm worthy. I worked on myself a ton and achieved a lot. I know I'm the prize. That means my style, hair, muscles, voice, posture, social achievements, great photos and videos of myself, having cool stories to tell and cool hobbies to spend time on, and my mindset. I rewired my negative beliefs into positive ones and learned to cheerlead myself when I feel down. All of that creates confidence.

- I want to overcome my fear at all times. I flinch forward, which means I created a habit of doing something instead of being afraid of it. You need to flinch forward in every aspect of your life, but even more so in cold approaching. It's a muscle inside your brain and you need to strengthen it. This also means I don't actually have an option to not approach, it wouldn't be true to myself. I also understand how untrue all the common fears are to reality.

Fear of rejection - I'll survive the rejection, it's not a big deal and doesn't reduce my worth; I just need to find a Yes girl or a Maybe girl, which will happen eventually.

Fear of not knowing what to say - you practice free or chain associating, you practice telling her the open and the open questions, you practice telling a story (yes, just come up and start telling a story to hook her attention), and sometimes you ask her a question and let her talk and then tease her about it; it's also a good idea to read about other people's cold approaching journeys to make it normal instead of scary.

Fear of what other people think - I've approached a girl in a tram once and nobody even looked in our direction, people just don't care; practice singing or clapping in the streets for 3 minutes and notice how quickly people go back to what they were thinking about, it will be just 1 second.

Perfectionism - your approaches are supposed to suck. You will never get it to perfection without gruesome practice. You're supposed to blow out sets. Then you come home and journal everything that happened and think how to improve it for next time, what you could've done or said to escalate and have more fun.

- I know what to say and what will happen after the approach. I warmed myself up with reference experiences. I know what happens after you give a girl a compliment; they usually explode with joy and say thanks or say thanks in the same state they were in (calm, for example) or they ignore you (headphones, social anxiety, your poor voice and tonality calibration). This got built towards cold approaching and understanding that most women want to be approached. They just want it done in the right way that is hot and validating to female psyche. I read a few books and watched a few courses that demistified cold approaching for me and taught me how to do it ins such a way.

Biggest impact stuff:

- Models by Mark Manson (book). You've got to read it every half a year when you're starting out. Do a ton of contemplation through journaling and work on your beliefs and lifestyle.

- Hotseat at home by Owen Cook (RSD Tyler) (course). Free association is best explained here.

- Fearless by RSD Max (course). Rewiring how you treat fear and doing public challenges like 30 compliments. Makes you realize how fun pickup is.

- The Flinch by Julien Smith (book). Learning to flinch forward in every aspect of your life.

- Daygame Beginner by Krauser, Daygame Mastery by Krauser (books). Everything about approaching. What to say, how to be sexual, how to structure dates and escalation.

- Always talk to strangers (book). Makes you understand that cold approaching is simply about talking to a girl and nothing more. That's what it means being outcome unattached. It's only after you approach do you amp up your intent from "I want to meet you" to "I want you". Make it easy for yourself by treating it as not a big deal.

- Balls Deep From jilted lover to lady killer by Krauser (book). Approaching journey from the very beginning. Best to journal it a lot to understand that this journey is long, full of rejections and battling your inner demons, but so, so worth it. Once you date your first 9 or 10 that's also a good and feminine girl, you'll heal a lot of your confidence issues through dating her. Same happened to Krauser.

- (optional) Girlfriend game course by RSD Max. Helps you frame your relationships and explains how to make a girl be okay with you dating others.

- (optional) The Truth by Niel Strauss. Heal childhood trauma through Niel's examples. Helps with inner game.

Nowadays my approaches are easy and don't create a turmoil inside me. I feel slight anxiety after I approach, but that's it. That's where you'll get with enough practice and reference experiences. Do the work. Do the challenges from the Fearless course. Achieve in life. Be sure that what the girl needs is a man with a dick, and nothing else, not money or other stupid stuff. Simply being masculine and bold is attractive. So get to embodying that now.

Special_Rice9539 · 2026-05-12T02:45:24+00:00

Cold showers help. It’s a similar situation where you’re dreading something and you need to overcome your nervous system to go into a shocking situation, and then you have to sit in the discomfort for a bit while your stress response is going off.

You feel great afterwards too, so it’s conditioning yourself to enjoy jumping into challenging situations.

The other angle is ego death. Dressing up in a stupid costume and being the centre of attention where you look like an idiot forces you to let go of your cool image of yourself. That’s part of why you don’t want to get rejected, because then you’d have to accept that you aren’t attractive, and your ego hates that. Anything where you force yourself to stop taking yourself so seriously and give yourself freedom to fail. Extreme vulnerability basically.

Doing open mic’s or public speaking… anything where you’re at the centre of attention of a big group also helps desensitize yourself to social pressure.

Meditation to help quiet your mind and gain awareness of the tension in your body. Then yoga to help get rid of that tension.

ghrinz · 2026-05-11T01:56:33+00:00

Have you worked with teenagers or dogs?

You work them out so they stay calm at home. Similarly, you work your brain indoors via meditation or other methods, so you can be present and say hi.

abcsofattraction · 2026-05-11T02:06:43+00:00

You've already half-diagnosed it. The freeze plus fake outcomes is the standard pattern. Three things actually fix it, in this order.

Body first. Two minutes of power posing before you even try to approach. Tall, shoulders back, feet wide, head up. Cuddy's Harvard research is real: it raises testosterone and lowers cortisol. Your body has to be in a different state than "guy thinking about it" or your nervous system keeps reading the situation as threat.

Brain second. When you spot someone, count down out loud: five, four, three, two, one, go. Numbers interrupt the rumination loop. Same principle as exposure therapy. This is the single move that breaks the freeze-overthink cycle you're describing.

Words third. Cheers opener at a bar. Eye contact, smile, raise your glass, say "cheers." She cheers back on autopilot. The opener works because it skips the part of your brain spinning fake outcomes. By approach four or five in a single night, the imagined catastrophes stop showing up because your nervous system has new data.

Full breakdown of the sequence and why the Cheers opener defeats the freeze: my Kickstarter Cheers article.

Title	How did you overcome approach anxiety, hesitation and stop overthinking before approaching someone?
Author	achyut2897
Upvotes	14
Comments	7
Date	May 11, 2026 1:49 AM UTC (2 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/seduction
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1t9pfsl/how_did_you_overcome_approach_anxiety_hesitation/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/seduction/how-did-you-overcome-approach-anxiety-hesitation.1580121 https://theredarchive.com/post/1580121

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