I was wondering, what has worked best for you guys out there in terms of improving confidence, and helping to lower ones level of insecurity when it comes to both game, and life in general? I have messed with NLP, Meditation, Hypnosis, and all those other popular ones. I haven't been consistent, except with mediation. Thoughts??

Here is what has worked best for me: Repetition.

Whatever materials you are using, go over them over and over again. Each time you do, you'll learn something new that you missed before, and the information will become more internalized. I find that the more I read and listen to the same things, the more it becomes ingrained in my mind and changes the way my mind works and the way I think. It becomes natural; I no longer have to think about it, it's just always there.

Awesome, so what is it specifically that you have used repeatedly with success? There are so many options out there, it's scary

I tend to go the route of self-help material, usually in audio format so I can listen to it while doing other things and just let it get absorbed (like working out at the gym).

Things I have on my mp3 player that I have listened to countless times already include:
Awaken The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins
Iron John by Robert Bly
How To Be A No Limit Person by Wayne Dyer
On Being A Man Who Naturally Attracts Women by David DeAngelo
How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette
Sexual Communication by David DeAngelo
Magnetic Mindsets by Cory Skyy

If I had to put them in order, I'd put No Limit Person as #1, with Awaken the Giant and On Being a Man tied for a close 2nd.

Only speaking from personal experience here but I've found Tony Robbins' Ultimate Power and Awaken The Giant Within to be hugely powerful. Ultimate Power is sort of the tool kit and Awaken The Giant Within is the dream life you build with the toolkit.

With regards to anxiety, I came across the following in a book by Carnegie last night and I found it to be the best and most simple advice for anxiety ever.

1)Define exactly what it is that is making you anxious

2)Picture vividly the worst case scenario of the source of your anxiety. So, to use a cold approach pick up context, say getting blown out, maybe even a drink thrown on you, something like that. And then accept that outcome. You're OK with it. You'll live. You'll be fine.

3)Take immediate action to improve the worst case outcome. So if getting blown out was the fear, take some time to work on aspects of your game which might lessen that possibility.

Hope that all made sense bro, feel free to PM me if any of that was less than clear.

NLP.hypnosis,meditation,etc.The missing ingredient is the power of belief.
Try positve visualisation and doing things that lead to your goalsStep by step see it being fulfilled. Good luck.

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law of attraction=Your reality is the outcome of your thoughts.

Is that "How To Stop Worrying and Start Living?"

Yeah that's the one man, saw Tim Ferriss give it a shout out on Youtube and it hasn't dissapointed so far.

I agree with repetition.

Also, personal improvement. This doesn't mean how to improve your skills with picking up women. It means how to improve yourself. Workout more and eat better. You'll feel and look better. Develop better social skills and read and become more informed and intelligent. Try to better yourself in your career/financially. You will live a better life and be happier. Seek new friends and ditch old ones that bring you down. Altogether, those things may not involve women at all, yet they increase your overall value and make you look much more appealing to a higher class of women.

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“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!” ~Audrey Hepburn

Good stuff guys. I'm gonna start with the Tony Robbins stuff first. He is a very cool dude, and I understand where he is coming from. Self help can be overwhelming, and the more Westernized the person is, the easier it is for me. Thanks a ton!

Robbins is a great first step. Be careful with some of his older teachings though as some of it is based on flawed science. He's great for the goal setting etc but his stuff in Ultimate Power about a fruit based diet or whatever is nonsense.

honestly dude, i have just been at least smiling and saying hello to, but mostly opening, every set of girls that makes eye contact with me for the past 3 days. almost all have reacted positively and a few even have asked me for my number and for me to contact them...my confidence has sky rocketed just from simply smiling and saying hello and seeing where it goes from there

The problem with this is that it is based on women. It is dependent on the approval of and positive reactions from women.

Confidence shouldn't have anything to do with women. It shouldn't come from women. If someone gets confidence from positive interactions with women, then that confidence can also be shattered by negative interactions with women, especially while in a relationship when they feel their gf starting to lose interest.

The kind of confidence we have been talking about is an internalized confidence that comes from within. It has nothing to do with women, and is neither granted nor negated by women.

this is an awesome and very informative post, and i greatly appreciate as i am still a total noob

however, i feel you misunderstood (or i poorly expressed) what i was trying to say. there have been (very small amount) sets were shit hasnt gone well, and i dont give a fuck, like at all i cant lie, the initial confidence boost came from seeing that women react well to me and the things ive been picking up here, but once i learned that this shit actually works, and that girls WILL be attracted to me, approval from a female could not mean any less to me, its all my internal confidence, which you mentioned. as previously stated it was spurred by initial female approval which i realize is faulty, but it really just allowed me to realize that i am pretty sweet, and any set that i open and dont manage to hook is merely their loss, and there will be many MANY more girls who i will be very attractive to.

so while this confidence may have not been acquired in the perfect way, i feel like i really am gaining that truly inner confidence that i am starting to radiate in social settings.

my question to you is this, obviously this confidence we are discussing, if not solely with regards to women, has very much to do with women. so where would someone (total afc) try to start to gain some inner confidence? i wasnt that confident, but my main problem was AA. opening all of these sets in many different scenarios got me over my AA very quickly, which elevated my confidence hugely, does that make sense?

sorry if this is confusing, its 420 ( ) AM and ive been snorting adderall all night reading half a semester's worth of reading to get this paper done before tomorrow night so i can fuckin sarge!

Nah, it's not confusing at all. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that you can approach girls with confidence. Not many guys can do that, so I admire your ability to do so. The problem I have with it, is using it as a source of confidence.

To really answer the question fully, we have to first understand why we do what we do. And it's not about women. We do what we do because of a subconscious search for masculinity. That is what we are really after. We want to feel masculine, to feel like a man. We tend to project that onto women, because we have an unconscious belief that "if I can get women, I will be a man and I will finally find my masculinity."
But, we are mistaken in this belief. When a man makes his search about women, he could have the most gorgeous HB10 in his life, but he still wants more, more, more. No matter how many beautiful women he has, he will never find satisfaction or fulfillment, and he certainly won't find masculinity. That is because femininity arouses masculinity, it does not bestow masculinity.

The reason I say such a method of gaining confidence is a problem, is because since industrialization men have had a lack of mature male mentors to teach them how to be a man. As a result, men turned to their mothers and a female-dominated education system to learn what it meant to be a man and to be masculine. This led to men being comfortable being defined by women and dependent on the approval of women. We have given our power away to women and believe that "in order to be a man, I must get women to like me and approve of me" and that our power comes from women.

Your method of gaining confidence continues the dangerous trend of gaining power through women. You gained confidence because the women you approached approved of you.
Imagine now that the first 15 women you approached had not approved of you and responded to you in a negative way. Would you still have gained confidence from that? Or would your confidence have been reduced? It is likely you would not have even gotten to 15, and would have given up after the first 3 or 4 women who rejected you.

If you look around this forum, you'll see many guys posting things along the lines of "I've lost my confidence with women," or "I can't get my confidence back," or "I used to be good with women, but now I don't feel confident," etc. The reason they are in that situation is because the confidence they had came from women. However, after a series of negative interactions with women, and most often a breakup, their confidence is gone because it was dependent on continuous approval of women.
They know and tell themselves that they are still good with women, they know the things they are supposed to do, and they know that there are plenty of other women out there. Yet, because of the nature of their confidence, their subconscious is telling them "I wasn't good enough for that girl, she didn't want me, there must be something wrong with me." And they have to essentially start all over again with building their confidence back up by experiencing positive interactions with women.

Whereas a confidence that comes from within, is not dependent on women. It doesn't matter if you have no women, an amazing woman, or many terrific women, it has absolutely no impact on your confidence at all. That is because you have constructed your life in such a way that you have so many amazing things going on, that are not motivated by trying to attract women, that even single you feel completely whole. If you decide to bring a woman into your life, it is not so she can complete you, but because you have deemed her worthy of someone with whom you would like to share your amazing life. She is not your adventure, you are merely bringing her along on your adventure.