TL:DR - The Same Old Basic Mistakes (SOBMs) might be a small list, but they're are the most insiduous and most deeply rooted ones. To fix them is the hard part -- everything else is well understood. You can't revise the basics enough.

You can go over to mrp and check out the latest post (can't link - it's called The Dread Contract and Scoreboard - How to frame improvement for YOU) on this topic. It's a high quality, "hit the nail on the head" article on a growing problem seen with many wannabes. It's also one of the most common ways by which people misunderstand everything we try to say, or even use against us.

Of late, I notice more and more posts (over there and here) increasingly boiling down to talking about doing everything seemingly right (seemingly...) but still committing the most basic mistakes, things that were talked about way back in NMMNG or in your first few days or weeks of being struck by a bolt of Red Lighting and rudely being awakened from the Blue Pilled fantasy you were dreaming out, usually by a woman...

Now we have lots of guys figuring this out for the first time in their lives, so it's expected that every man who ever lived is going to learn at least some of the same lessons in their own way, so we'll keep seeing more of the same basic posts. But this is not about that. Somewhere along the way to being the man we want to be and get the life we want, we do everything else right, and it looks like when it comes to the skills and game, we've figured out almost everything we need. Except...

We still haven't fixed some basic mistakes. Such as:

  • Too many "she she she" statements. Your very point of origin begins with a "She". If you're asked to tell me something about yourself, you might start with "She says..."
  • Losing frame at the slightest shit test or discomfort
  • Losing frame at the slightest dose of pleasure and comfort -- yeah, pleasure is the more evil twin. Pain's honest. Pleasure lies.
  • Telling yourself you aren't butt hurt when things don't go your way when you clearly are seething inside.
  • Still talking to her to try and negotiate desire
  • Still living in her frame.
  • Going rambo and dropping a nuke where a scissor would have sufficed.
  • You're still suffering from what I call Blue Pilled Bipolar Disorder (BPBPD). In two forms :
    • Doing everything right (are you?) and then asking some variant of "Why doesn't she, the goddess, grant me the prize of sex?" followed by "#&!@(#@ those $%#$@ devils!"
    • You were totally Beta fanboying over the men who taught your how to be a man, then like a child you get butthurt and make a rage post worthy of a 2 year old with a full range of vocabulary when you realize they're not gods on your pedestals.
  • Covert Contracts & Contracts with outcomes -- i.e. All the stuff that's not really in your control - reactions, emotions, consequences. Being a man is a conditional covert contract for you.
    • And acting in her frame as a result of outcome dependence
  • Using dread like an emotional covert contract and guaranteeing you still stay in her frame (again...).
    • And then realizing the hard way it'll never have the same effect as pure natural desire does.
    • And THEN realizing you were really just taking your life and masculinity back into your own hands, and dread was the consequence of that.
  • She is the prize.
  • Sex is the prize for being the man you were meant to be.
  • Oneitis - women, results, sex, and all of life.
  • Shit that you knew and said you'd fix years back, is still the way as it was then.
  • You're still unhappy
    • Either you still haven't managed to get what you want.
    • Something else happened outside your limited range of idealized outcomes.
    • Or you got all that you wanted and still feel depressed like a pleasure (pain) addiction. No, you were the problem all along.

These are what I call the Same Old Basic Mistakes (SOBMs). More appropriately, they can be called SOB mistakes. It's a small list -- not being attractive, no standards, ignoring and denying reality, losing your frame, enslaved by pain & pleasure, still living in her frame (she-itis), trying to negotiate desire, covert contracts, outcome dependence, one-itis in love and life, lack of abundance, you not being the prize mentally, neglecting and not really loving yourself, not owning your shit, not being the captain leading your life, blue pilled bipolar disorder, going rambo when you read this list, and you being the root of all your problems (the original SOBM).

We could copy that paragraph, maybe in bullet points, out on a small notepad or a sticky note or two and paste it up somewhere where we can see it, and chances are, even years later, they'll still be the most important things you'll ever have to watch out for.

If you have ever tried your hand at mastering a skill or a musical instrument, one thing you quickly learn is that the basic stuff is the most underrated thing there is, and you can never take that lightly. As soon as you get complacent, not practicing, the first thing to start declining is the basics. Don't practice one day, you know it. Don't practice for two days, your peers know it. Don't practice for 3 days, the audience knows it -- quotes like these are almost religion in the music world.

In fact, our man Dr. Glover recently read his book all over again, and was shocked to realize he'd forgotten almost half of it. It must have been quite an eye opener for him.

The same old basic mistakes are also the most deeply rooted. They have spent the maximum amount of time (maybe the vast majority of your life) digging into your subconscious, shaping your very neural networks and you aren't going to uproot them overnight.

SOBMs may look simple, but the difficulty in recognizing them and weeding them out and getting the new mindset into the very basic stuff is harder than it looks -- you will find yourself coming up with more fitting acronyms for SOB mistakes when you realize just how powerful they really are and just how much they end up creating your personal sob story. They are the first to come in, and the last to go out. And they'll come back in at the first opportunity when you drop your guard and get lazy. They're very well known at this point, and still for many of us, even years later, they're not yet fixed.

The SOB mistakes account for almost 80% of all your problems or maybe even 100% of your problems. One thing is for sure -- they describe 100% of the post apocalyptic wasteland that is AskTRP.

All other issues either fit underneath one of these SOB mistakes or are just matters of mastering nuances.

The most insiduous of them, and the one you might struggle most with, is probably the covert contract, which goes hand in hand with outcome dependence. The root cause for not eliminating these is that you have one fixed outcome on your mind. That one outcome however is irrevocably in her hands. You have a contract with something that you can never truly own. Therefore you continue to operate in her frame and surrender your personal power to her.

Of all the SOB mistakes, living in her frame has got to take the cake for being the most stubborn pattern you'll ever have to overwrite in your life. And the covert contract is pretty much the easiest way to do it.

There's a reason why I keep coming back to NMMNG, because it just nailed this SOBM. Too many people go up the improvement road and fail to realize they're still stuck in a big covert contract.

If you want these covert contracts to go away, you should be willing to let go of onetis for stuff that you really have no control over. You have to stop seeing your entire journey to manhood as Clause 1,2 and god knows what number of a rather gigantic covert contract.

As I wrote in my last post, covert contracts are also the result of covert goals, aka your actual motivation for doing anything. Dig that out of the ground as soon as you spot it.

Just remember, your growth is supposed to fix your problems for real, and in the process you've got to be willing to face the authentic truth, whatever that is. This won't necessarily fix problems the way you imagine them fixed, especially when your idealized solution is deeply flawed to begin with. Whatever that was created from a dysfunctional point of origin isn't going to survive once you fix yourself. So you have to remain outcome independent and keep yourself open to things happening beyond your ideas. Only then will you truly do this for you, and your growth story will actually be in your frame.

Not surprisingly, the more committed you are in a relationship, the more you have at stake and therefore the more prone you will be to chronically suffer from making the same old basic mistakes.

You can only work on actions, not reactions. You can only work on goals, not consequences. You can only make yourself into the man you are meant to be, but you cannot determine how exactly the world will react to it.

And yes, we all start out with sex as the prize (even if it isn't that one woman, it's still sex). Changing this mentality to "I am the prize" with authenticity is the thing is the thing that's hardest to truly get and internalize. Sex isn't the ultimate prize, it's just one thing most missing in your life right now (and which your body craves).

The only issue with "Sex as the prize" mentality is that women (and anyone not yourself) can spot it a mile away and it will force you to live in the frame of whoever controls your access to sex. She knows she can just give you duty / dread sex and pretend to like it or react with hysterical bonding and that's all it takes to stop you from a becoming truly authentic man. And if it works, it quickly becomes a pattern. This won't really put your personal power and masculinity back into your frame. Too many people play the game only to realize much later that Sex as the Prize meant that they were still playing in her frame and her reaction had become a barometer of their own masculinity. And TBH, dread isn't any match for pure, unegotiated, natural attraction.

"Sex as the prize" is actually a beginner's mentality. It is born out of scarcity. It keeps you stuck in loss of frame and covert contracts. Somewhere it must change to "I am the prize" with sex as one of your biological drives. Sex is something you want as a man, it's not the ultimate reward for being the man you were meant to be (that is a much bigger reward in itself, sex being only one aspect to it). We figure this out some years down the road once we realized women were far more clever than they let on, and it wasn't the same as the pure, natural desire that existed in the beginning.

Passing shit tests is standard stuff, lines can be rehearsed, a gym routine can be worked out in a month, a sense of humor takes a few months, getting good at sex is an art, changing your style can take a lot of trial and error and etc..etc.. -- but all those things are skills. They can be nailed down to a T with enough practice.

But doing this authentically as a way of life? Not just faking it and making it, but BEING it, that takes more. I am sure some people take the 1 month for every year of BP rule way too seriously and feel entitled to the results on the 31st of December or whatever date they set because the author of the book said so and and aren't very happy on New Year's day when faced with the reality. Guys, facing the truth is what being an authentic man is about. Making it isn't the point, it's still temporary and conditional. Being it is what matters.

Instead, as painful as it might sound, get into accepting whatever be the authentic outcome that arises out of living as the man in your life. When you have broken the oneitis for an outcome, you are now open to allow many other possibilities beyond your imagination to enter instead.

This gives you a new found inner strength to deal with shit (that's probably something you'll be grateful for in the long run). That paradoxically makes you more attractive in the bigger picture.

If I had to sum up a man's RP journey, it's that when women are no longer the salvation you dreamed of, you go back (or start now, if you never did) to being the man you were supposed to be and take full responsibility of your life back in your hands step by step. It's the only thing you could ever do or ever did. The rest was a consequence.

Outcomes can't be controlled. Only choices can. Reactions can't be controlled or guaranteed. Actions can. Consequences can't be controlled, but goals can. A man's who honestly accepts any authentic outcome at the end of the finish line is more attractive than the one who isn't because he can deal with anything. Unless you're ready for anything, you're not really ready.

Most of the BS articles you'll read about "Red Pill" on the internet just take the examples of people doing exactly these SOB mistakes and try to present them as if that's what RP tells guys to do. It's deliberate.

Think of everything that's inherently attractive or beautiful or profound in your life. The most authentically attractive things aren't doing it for your approval. They've gone beyond fake it or make it, or never had to deal with that -- that's just the way there are. They don't fade away the instant you're looking somewhere else. That's the energy they put out, and we just fall in love with what they are. That is the art of BEING it.

Red Pilled Living is a paradox of sorts - the more you seek, the less you find, because the more you keep telling yourself how needy you are. The more you find, the less you seek. Ultimately it's what's within you that's just reflecting back to you.

There is no prize bigger than being the man you are meant to be. Sex is one part of that.

PS : For further info, just go read this post in mrp titled "The dread contract and scoreboard. How to frame improvement for you" - the post, and the thread below, is one of the better ones yet. It is a detailed look at the most stubborn SOBM in marriages and LTRs and the inspiration for this post.

There is nothing more fundamental than the basics. True in art, true in life.