"This is a lifestyle, not a hobby"

"This is a lifestyle, not a hobby." My friend said to me on my first trip to the gym two years ago. I scoffed at him.

"Sure" I said. I was just ready to start working out with him. He was studying Kinesiology and talked me into a gym membership. What did I have to lose? I barely lifted since I left high school and I was scrawny as fuck! Let's get our pump on. In two months time I'll be bigger than King Kong and I'll be pulling girls left and right! So I thought. We spent three mornings a week working out. I had no plan. I had no goal. But I had instruction. I had the knowledge to tell me which exercise to do, how much, how long, and what to do next. It was great!

But two months later our schedules changed. No longer could we work out together. He had the night shift and I got a job working in the morning. No matter! I can do it!

Nope. Spent a couple months staring at my bank account watching the gym fee eat away at my disposable income. Should I just drop the gym? I don't go anymore. Seems like a waste.

But the gym had this quality of calling me back. I texted him one day for a workout I could do on my own. I was nervous as hell. Me! Go into a gym all alone and know what I'm doing! But I persevered and did the workout he sent me.

A week later, I started looking into beginner workouts. I felt insecure for asking for more workouts from my friend and didn't want to lean on him for more work out advice. I started a beginner workout. Nothing major, just simple workouts with minimal weight. I started once a week. Then it turned into twice a week. Then I met a girl...

Long story short, I failed. I gave up the lifestyle. I gave up the work I made for a girl because I thought the working out got me the girl. It didn't. My self worth was tied to girls, not squats. I was so hung up on working out to get a girl that I gave it up the minute I got the girl.

Two years later I am still going to the gym. I have my own workout. Three days I week I go to the gym. I thought it was bullshit when I heard "I miss going to the gym". But it's true, the gym has the weird effect of shutting down your overthinking mind. You pump weights for an hour with a meditational presence (is that even a word?). I now have the confidence to walk into a gym with what I want to lift, for how long, for how many sets because this is a lifestyle, not a hobby. This is not something I do on the side when I'm bored. This is a disciplined habit that took too long to understand.

Seduction is the same way. Don't treat it as a way to try to get with "that one girl from [work, class, coffee shop, dorm, neighbor, etc.]". This is a lifestyle, not a hobby.

You are not trying to approach and build social skills to get with that one girl. You are not building these skills to get a promotion. You are not building these skills to stop becoming a doormat.

You are building these skills so you can be confident in those skills in any social aspect of life. You know how awesome it is to do something in real life that requires strength...and you actually have that strength to lift something with ease? You practice in the gym and maybe it'll help in real life. Maybe it won't.

Stop looking at life as if your aren't prepared and start looking at life as if you have been prepared this whole time and you have it somewhere in yourself to navigate the uncharted territory facing you that one day at work. Or that one day at school. Or that one day when you saw that one hot girl at the bus stop.

This is a lifestyle, not a hobby. So act accordingly.