Hey guys, im new around here. I wanna share what I have discovered, learned and internilized, because what I've done in the past three months improved enormeusly my conversational skills and I think that could be usueful for who as me sucked at socializing. About 3 months ago I was the living definition of Shyness: I was the quitest guy in any possible enviroment, parties, classroom, family etc., and I talked only when was necessary. I had few friends and thje majority of the people that I knew found hard to starts any conversation with me, I was hard to talk to and I didnt want it. I was trapped in myself, I wanted to relate differently to other people - I needed it, desperatley. I didnt like that feeling of being alone, I hated it.
Now, after three month I am a perfectly chill guy, Im far from being a good PUA, but at least Im on my way. This is how I changed from being a quiet weirdo to a easy-to-talk-to guy. This is what it got me to live the moment and enjoy life knowing a bunch of new guys and girls.

At first I realized that I feared human contact (expecially when it had to be with hot babes): I was unconsciously concerned on how they would perceive my image, how they would be judging me. That kind of feeling prevented me to open people, or made me to think twice before talking to someone (which flattered the conversation and made it sound unnatural). I knew that was an irrational fear and therefore I convinced myself that

"Everybody I talk to is going to respond positiveley to what I have to say"

Before saying anything I just practise quickly imagining the person I would open respond positiveley to what I had to say: looking straight into my eyes, smiling, giggling etc. That way I easily changed my internal emotions to "oh my god, im nervous, what if I she thinks Im weird" to "shes gonna just like me": it changed my mood of the approach, and after a while doing it I had an overall sense of positivity before talking to anyone (I didnt have to image anyone smiling back to me anymore cuz I was much more positive to the approach).

Still a lot to do needed to be done. Ive noticed that we shy people tend to think a lot more: that doesnt mean we are smarter, we just live half in one world (in the real world), half in another one (in our minds). But how to overcome "thinking"? How to overcome being in our minds? The first thing to do is

"Focus on the enviroment, shush your mind"

a good exercise to do that is the following

"Sit relaxed and start look around at the enviroment. Pick a particular object, observe it intenseley. Be that object. You will notice that your mind will be more quiet. ( As a matter of fact we cant stop thinking:our mind is like a loaded gun, it will keep shooting but we can decide to change the direction of the bullet. If you look at one particular item your mind will be involved in that item and the obsessive thoughts will disappear one after one...) Achieve a relaxed state of mind looking that object you've chosen, being that object. Observe that state of mind, you are not thinking anything, your mind is free: try to hold that state of mind as long as possible. You'll live the moment that way"

The less we think, the more we are in the world,the more we live the moment. We are reactive, we have momentum. We will eliminate those stupid obsessive thoughts as "Im a looser, Shes gonna think im weird, I cannot do this..".
How to aplly living the moment with our social skills and?

"Picture yourself throughout your day as if you were the protagonist of a movie, projected on a big cinema screen"

This exercise is the application of the previous one but applied on social dynamics: the objects of my observation are not objects anymore but situations, situation of my life. This truly improved my social dynamics: I could perceive how people would react to my facial expression and my voice tonality. I started calibrating naturally. I was in deep touch with reality, bodylanguage came as a result of that, because I knew how the people in that cinema would see my image. This exercise made me manage my perceived image. As a matter of fact after a while it just came natural and i didnt even need anymore to picture myself as projected to a big screen: I had a new mind.

So now that I think less, I trained myself to have a positive attitude and Im mostly in control of my perceived image, I have all the tools I need to be a social guy.

The first thing to do is to begin to talk to anybody, since the very first moment of the day. Is very hard to get talkative at this moment but if you get in the mood (with your new careless mind) is easy to keep being in the mood.
Chat about anything, prefering silly or stupid topics. With your new mind you will say whatever it comes as the conversation flows, and if something goes wrong dont blame anybody for that. Just dont get back on the mood of obsessive thinking.
Start talking to stranger will improve your skill way more than talking to the person you already know. Its harder, cuz we have to make more effort to make our minds quiter and avoid stupid thoughts. At this point we all know about openers.
The biggest thing at this point are the freez outs: ok lets say you'r gonna simply ask the time to a girl standing somewhere. Remember to stay in the moment. You will notice her cool watch, her funny way to stand up, or knowing the time just reminded you how late you are.

"Express your thoughts sincerley, say anything comes to your mind"

This way you wont freez out and get back to your obsessive thoughts. Even if u say something that didnt come off the right way or simply made her turn the other way, that wont change your reality.

"Dont be affected to others"

Dont sit down bored hearing the other talking at the party. Say it. Loud. Man im bored, thats who you are right in that moment. You dont care about the other person thoughts in that moment. Express your own ones. Dont be affected by the presence of other people.

Once you are careless, you live the moment and you say it, not caring on what the others say,once you can manage freeze outs, you can run a genuine conversation with anybody.

Only now you can monitor new you, an easy-to-talk-to type of guy, with all the PUA tecniques ever invented.

This are the best tecniques I used to overcome social shyness. Hope my experience can be helpful to anybody was in my conditions. And let me tell you, I was hopeless.. I thoght I was hopeless.

C.K.

Fantastic, this seems like an excellent way of overcoming shyness. I myself think that I think too much; I never thought that it may be the cause of my being quiet. Congratulations to you, and I hope more people will use this to help themselves.

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If my post made me appear homosexual, I want you all to know that prior to sitting down at my computer I slammed 15 shots of whiskey, went balls-deep into my woman, and recited Clint Eastwood lines for 20 minutes.

I like your thinking.

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http://www.realpuas.com

thanks guys. I really think that any AFC has got to learn how to socialize first, then how to pick up.
It should be a step by step progress. You do can learn how to socialize by learning how to pick up hot babes but it will be harder and i think it will take longer too..

Sometimes people are not consistent. One day you're all talkative, and you're socializing with everybody around you in social gatherings.

The next night, you're the most quiet guy out there. I say it because, i used to act like that lol.

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What's the worst that can happen?

Nice job man. I have read and it has really helped me a lot. Thanks bro.

Idd, sometimes we are not consistend, today in class (the ones that are supposed to be interactive) I noticed that at times my mind floated away thinking about what ever was bothering me of stuff i had to do and didn't want to forget. When you are that much locked up in your mind you won't even notice what is going on outside of your mind. So telling myself to stop doing that really helps. The only problem sometimes is that you unconsiously slip back into that state of mind. I've never been a really quiet guy, but I think the principles are the same for everyone. I do still freeze out in conversations with (mostly) strangers, but when your mind is empty and you focus on what has been said and extract from that what you can use for the conversation, I think that over time you can really improve a lot. Just being aware of the fact what are the main factors (being in your mind, caring what others think, etc.) that influence you to not being able to talk as easily is a great improvement over the situation in which you don't know what's going on with you.

Also last night a friend and I were discussing an assignment that required us to 'think' during the process. For some reason because I had to think I also tended to lock myself up inside my mind. As soon as I did that, I couldn't think of anything to say anymore, even about the topic we were discussing. And because you don't know what to say you stress out even more and that makes it even worse, it's like a vicious circle that you know you need to get out of, but that is really hard in the moment. During the conversation I did realise what was happening to me and that alone helped me to escape from that vicious circle a little bit, but I need to focus on not getting into it in the first place.

Ive never seen things that way before, thanks for the insight

Great post man. I agree with it on so many levels, and those exercises you described are great. I have always known that I probably think more than is good for me - my mind is always getting cluttered with unimportant thoughts and scenarios. I'll definitely be using those exercises. Again, great post.

By the way, have you ever read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle? I just started it, but many of the concepts you talked of are described in great and thorough detail in this book. Some of it may sound like mindless dribble at times, but I really enjoy his ideas and can say that they have definitely helped me on a personal and interpersonal level.

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Life will go on, win or lose. However hard you've worked, you'll get what you deserve.

Yep - great post!

Very interesting and makes a lot of sence, its funny how us shy guys do think A LOT, usually of what might go wrong. I try to remind myself that nothing, good or bad goes the same way I imagined it happen. Well am very happy for u on ur succes n keep up the work, am basically the same as u, once a redicolously shy dude, but now that am working on it, am not a PUA but u can have a conversation with me.

Hopefully staying on topic I'd like to recommend a book I read a few times a year: Stop Thinking Start Living by Richard Carlson.

I have reached stages in my life over the past few years where I constantly fall back into the pattern of over thinking and over analyzing everything. Whenever I read that book I become conscious of my thoughts and it helps me know which thoughts to keep and which thoughts to discard.

To be honest i like your post its great but the part about thinking too much is probably the first ever rule i learnt and its part of the 3 second rule, i dont follow the 3 second rule but a clause of that rule is 'You will think about the approach too much and back out'.

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There is Plenty Of Things To Think About.

But Nothing To Worry About.

Brilliant post! Bookmarked for later

this is wicked