You don't get good at anything without trying. If you want to be good with women, you have to put in the effort. The better you get at it the more confident you'll be. On the flip side, get good in all of the other aspects of your life and then you'll be able to have the confidence in knowing that women will be attracted to you because you have your shit together.

So you recommend to both keep approaching women and improving all other life aspects?

Edit: but can you really be confident with women, while not at all confident in the rest of your life? If one would do much better with purely approaching women and not much else

Does it make sense at all to approach women if you are lacking confidence and don't believe in yourself? Should confidence and self-belief be build up before approaching women or can it grow while doing it? How can it be developed effectively?

Note: didn't read the sob story.

As for the opening paragraphs question:

Confidence is purely 'situational competence'

The more times you expose yourself to a scary environment/situation, the more used to it you will become. The comfortable you will be. The more naturally you will act and react (where real attraction starts to come from)

Just accept the first few sets you do will suck.

Happens to everyone.

But merely putting yourself in the situation is a step forwards. And believe me, you'll start experiencing little successes much faster than you could ever imagine.

In fact, it was exactly 9 days after my very first direct cold approach that I got my first Daygame lay.

Now I'm not saying that it took me 9 days to become super charismatic and naturally confident in these social situations, but I AM saying that by putting myself in these situations on a constant basis, I quickly lucked out and found a "yes" girl who basically slept with me despite my 'game' at the time.

Regards,

Daygame Australia .Com

Write down a few goals, whether they are related to pickup or not, and go accomplish them. Doesn't have to be about running a marathon either. Write down some small goals you can do in a month, and some that may take longer. Only requirement I'd tack on is that they should all be ones that don't require other people to say have been accomplished. For instance, you can make it a goal to not eat fast food for a month. Then thirty days later go "tada!"

And pickup is a skill. If you want to get good at it, you have to practice the absolute basics until they are automatic for you. Otherwise you're going out doing the same shit because you are trying to play basketball without learning how to dribble let alone shoot.

Write down a few goals, whether they are related to pickup or not, and go accomplish them. Doesn't have to be about running a marathon either. Write down some small goals you can do in a month, and some that may take longer. Only requirement I'd tack on is that they should all be ones that don't require other people to say have been accomplished. For instance, you can make it a goal to not eat fast food for a month. Then thirty days later go "tada!"

Self-esteem doesn't care about goals and what you've accomplished. When I had a depression last year, even though I had lived in three different countries, was speaking three languages, was studying in one of the best universities in the world, had a decent body, could hold interesting conversation, had had fancier sexual experiences than most people, could play the piano, had written a novel and was planning on writing another one, had a clear idea of what my goals where in life.... even with ALL OF THIS, I could still tell myself "I'm a fucking mistake, nobody would wanna spend time with this guy."

OP, it could help you to understand where you low self-esteem comes from, but it's not gonna solve the problem. Low self-esteem works like a dysfunctional way to analyze yourself: you start with a negative hypothesis (I am a fucking mistake), then you look for evidences, discarding the one that go against the hypothesis (ok, I've traveled a lot and I got interesting hobbies... but I haven't touched a girl in months and I don't have any close friends and I feel like shit), and finally you get back to and reinforce the negative hypothesis (that must be because I'm a fucking mistake!).

Which is why I ask you: what is your opinion of yourself? And being honest with yourself, can you find examples in your life that support that opinion, and other examples that negate it? What have you done that add value to yourself? What are you qualities and your strong points?

In that process you might stumble on weak points too, and that's alright, everybody has some. But there's an easy way to turn these into something positive: decide HERE AND NOW to ACT and change those weak points. Ask yourself how you can improve in these areas. Being on the journey to improvement is already a strong point.

And once you have this whole picture of yourself, keep it in mind. You will eventually return to the dysfunctional reasoning from time to time (I regularly do): when this happens, acknowledge that you're gonna be biased toward picking up negative experiences and negative points to prove the hypothesis, so force yourself to look at the positive aspects in your life. Almost always the conclusion should be "I'm not perfect, but I'm doing my best in life and I have valuable experiences and qualities that make me a worthy human being."

Self-esteem doesn't care about goals and what you've accomplished. When I had a depression last year, even though I had lived in three different countries, was speaking three languages, was studying in one of the best universities in the world, had a decent body, could hold interesting conversation, had had fancier sexual experiences than most people, could play the piano, had written a novel and was planning on writing another one, had a clear idea of what my goals where in life.... even with ALL OF THIS, I could still tell myself "I'm a fucking mistake, nobody would wanna spend time with this guy."

OP, it could help you to understand where you low self-esteem comes from, but it's not gonna solve the problem. Low self-esteem works like a dysfunctional way to analyze yourself: you start with a negative hypothesis (I am a fucking mistake), then you look for evidences, discarding the one that go against the hypothesis (ok, I've traveled a lot and I got interesting hobbies... but I haven't touched a girl in months and I don't have any close friends and I feel like shit), and finally you get back to and reinforce the negative hypothesis (that must be because I'm a fucking mistake!).

Which is why I ask you: what is your opinion of yourself? And being honest with yourself, can you find examples in your life that support that opinion, and other examples that negate it? What have you done that add value to yourself? What are you qualities and your strong points?

In that process you might stumble on weak points too, and that's alright, everybody has some. But there's an easy way to turn these into something positive: decide HERE AND NOW to ACT and change those weak points. Ask yourself how you can improve in these areas. Being on the journey to improvement is already a strong point.

And once you have this whole picture of yourself, keep it in mind. You will eventually return to the dysfunctional reasoning from time to time (I regularly do): when this happens, acknowledge that you're gonna be biased toward picking up negative experiences and negative points to prove the hypothesis, so force yourself to look at the positive aspects in your life. Almost always the conclusion should be "I'm not perfect, but I'm doing my best in life and I have valuable experiences and qualities that make me a worthy human being."