She's Six Steps Away: Get Past Approach Anxiety and Meet the Woman You Want

by Eric Disco

But today is different. Totally different. Instead of simply sitting and watching these attractive women, I’m about to have a conversation with one of them.

Now and then I’d meet a woman through friends and think, this is my chance. Sometimes I even got a date. But usually things fell apart quickly. In fact, the more I was into her, the quicker things seemed to fall apart.

I decided I would just wait it out. I would focus on music and other passions rather than trying to meet women. After all, I reasoned, there was nothing much I could do about it. I would meet that perfect person one day. It will happen, the world assured me. You don’t need to do anything but what you’re doing. Don’t focus on women, because it will just push them away. The stars will align one day and everything will work out. So I kept doing what I was doing. And the years passed.

At a certain point I realized that things weren’t going to “just happen.” I could go on indefinitely like this and not find that person.

And even if I did meet her by chance, I suspected I wouldn’t be comfortable around someone I was deeply attracted to. I would do something to screw it up.

What if I get rejected? What if someone from work sees me get rejected? Isn’t it weird to just walk up and start talking to a woman I don’t know? I’m not dressed right. She’ll just get annoyed. I shouldn’t interrupt what she’s doing. I’ll do this tomorrow. No, I promise myself, today is the day. I start to feel sick to my stomach.

I can’t do it! There’s no way I’ll be able to get a good reaction from her. I can’t flirt and banter when I’m this nervous. I won’t even be able to give her a sincere compliment.

Since my newfound skills are failing me, I decide to do the easiest thing I can think of—just walk over and tell her I’d like to talk with her. If she rejects me, she rejects me. I’m going to just do it. All I have to do is say the words. That’s it. Just throw them out there. I don’t have to care what happens after that. I ca...

I start to move my feet in her direction. My legs shake as I walk up to her table. “Hi,” I say. She looks up at me. “I was … just walking by and … I wanted to say hi.” I can hear the nervousness in my voice. “My name’s Eric.” I extend my hand. She looks surprised for a moment, then introduces herself. We shake hands. I ask if I can sit down. She says yes. I slide down into the chair at the table. Words start to come out of my mou...

I don’t get a date with her. I don’t get her phone number. I barely make her laugh. But none of that matters. When I get up and walk away, something is different. Today, I got into a conversation with a woman. If any of the busy professionals bothered to look up from their lunches, they would have seen something unmistakable on my face. A smile. I’m beaming because I did something that I had been unable ...

Life is different for me now. I’ve met countless people. I’ve had many flings and hookups. I’ve been in wonderful relationships with gorgeous women. I’ve had tons of crazy adventures—adventures I’d never thought possible. Almost everything I’ve dreamed of has come true for me. Yet, despite my successes with women, I still face many challenges and frustrations. Self-doubt and uncertainty plague me from time to time. Just like any guy who’s putting himself out there, I experience hurt, loss, and heartbreak in all their splendor.

But the most important thing that’s changed is that I can live my life the way I want to live it. If I want to walk across a room at a social event and talk with a woman, I can. Inhibition is no longer a millstone around my neck. For me, meeting women is now part of an everyday process.

Four years ago, I launched a one-on-one coaching program, called the Six Step Method. It was designed to do one thing: enable guys to initiate conversations with women they don’t know. With a series of exercises, each client breaks down his inhibitions gradually until he achieves the ability to meet and interact with women.

2Let Your Body Learn – The Principles that Power the Six Step Method Here we discuss the single most important thing you can do to improve socially and how you can harness your feelings to work for you instead of against you.

“I still get some distress, but nowhere near what it was,” Todd says. “I can’t remember the last time I could feel my heart beating from being overwhelmed. I’m more likely to take action now. There are actionable steps for me to take to move forward.”

At the start of the Six Step Method, Chris’s biggest concern was whether he could make the program his own, so it didn’t seem scripted, forced, or fake. He wanted it to feel genuine. He soon found this wasn’t a problem. “Every time I talk to somebody new,” he says, “it’s completely different. It’s the same structure, but it’s always a different interaction. It’s like playing basketball. Every time you get to that line, you can take the shot. But no two shots are exactly the same. It becomes fun.”

The last time Chris was in a bookstore, he saw an “amazing” woman looking at books on sewing. She had dark curly hair, olive skin, and was dressed fashionably—the look he goes for. Chris wanted to talk with her but felt hesitant. So he decided to ask her for a book recommendation and then walk away. He ended up in a 20-minute conversation. “I almost couldn’t get her to shut up,” he says, laughing. “She was genuinely happy to be talking with me. She could have just said, ‘I don’t know any good books’ and walked away. But she kept talking. And talking. “I could never see myself doing something like this before I went through the the Six Step Method,” he says. “Not even remotely close.”

In the last few months, Chris has been going on two or three dates a month. He feels his ability to meet women has contributed to healthier relationships. He also found that talking to strangers allowed him to practice his social skills in situations where the stakes weren’t as high. “It’s much easier to practice on strangers that I’m never going to see again,” Chris explains. “This Six Step Method provided me with the opportunity to fail where it didn’t matter. This was a great opportunity to say, hey, it doesn’t matter if this person walks away or gets mad at me. You need to get some at bats. No baseball player is incredible the first time he gets up to bat.”

By practicing his social skills with strangers, Chris has found that he’s more “likable.” Chris recently reconnected with a woman he’d gone on a date with two years ago. “She was amazed at my assertiveness and how much fun I was. She said—and this is a true statement—‘I don’t know why you...

Chris signed up for bowling on Tuesdays. “Not only are we all friends on the team, but we’re now friends with all the people in the lane next to us. It became one big group. The Six Step Method gave me the ability to create those connections. I want to do this everywhere I go. It gets addictive.”

“We are built to have fulfilling social lives,” says my former client Sachin. “We are social creatures.” And as social creatures, learning to interact with others is the most important step you can make in your own empowerment.

I sat in my apartment and read. And read. It all seemed so clever. Do this. Say that. How can she not be into that line? It was funny as hell. It made me laugh, so why wouldn’t it make her laugh? I felt a jolt of energy. I can do this, I said to myself. I walked out the front door of my apartment and down into the street. A block later I came to a café. Peering through the window, I saw her. She was amazing. She sat reading in body-fitted clothing. This was my chance. But all of a sudden, something didn’t feel right. Everything didn’t feel right. A thousand excuses flooded my mind. My legs got numb. I felt my heart pounding in my chest. Minutes earlier, everything looked perfect. And now, everything was different.

You pick up a book and read about a great concept, strategy, or opening line to help you meet women. The concept sounds like something you can do. You get excited. You can’t wait to try it out. This time, success seems certain. Then you walk out the front door, see a woman who interests you, and everything changes. Your feet aren’t moving. There’s a brick wall between you. You’re paralyzed by the thought of walking over to her and opening your mouth. It all looked so good on paper. The lines seemed so clever. The plan seemed so clear. But your body isn’t having it.

It seems like you should be able to figure out something in your mind that will allow you to get rid of those feelings. But the feelings that arise at the point of action are involuntary. You have no conscious control over them.

Imagine this scenario. You’re walking along the sidewalk and you come to a crosswalk. You’re lost in thought and forget to check for traffic before crossing the street. Just as you step forward into the street, a horn from a bus blares. You leap back without a moment’s thought. Your heart races as the bus zooms by, inches from your face. Your instinctual response has just saved your life. ...

This basic survival mechanism is primitive. It is the first behavior to have evolved in animals. From single-celled protozoa to the most intelligent creatures on earth, no other tendency serves an organism as powerfully as its will to survive in the presence of a perceived threat. Without the instinct to...

Your response to evade the bus was triggered at the inner core of your brain, where other functions such as hunger and sex urges are regulated. This part of the brain is often called the “reptilian”...

The larger outer brain in humans is responsible for higher thinking and reasoning, such as language and calculation. When you play chess, you are using your outer brain to think logically about you...

But when you step into the street and see an oncoming bus, your body reacts immediately, almost as a reflex. Because the reaction requires immediacy, it must be involuntary. Logical, outer brain thinking is too slow to save you from the bus. You do not decide to feel a certain way when a bus is coming toward you. Instead, your body reacts. Your “reptilian” brain elicits a chain reaction, making you extremely uncomfortab...

It would seem that standing in a park and contemplating saying hello to a woman is a very different situation than stepping into the path of an oncoming bus. However, your brain perceives the social interaction as a precarious situation and a similar process is triggered in the body.

Human beings evolved to be social creatures because it was beneficial to our survival. For most of our evolution, humans lived in tribes, hunting and gathering in the wild. Living in groups had many advantages. We could work together to procure food, clothing, and shelter. There was strength in numbers, which meant safety from predators and threats from other human beings. There were more mating opportunities in groups.

While group living is advantageous to survival, it also presents problems. What happens when a conflict inevitably arises between individuals within a group? In order to function, the grou...

In hunter-gatherer days, a conflict with another individual could be a threat to survival. Human beings instinctually respond to threats with two primary behaviors: fight or flight. If the individual feels that he has adequate strength and resources, he may stay and fight. If he feels he cannot win, he flees to safety. Neither of these options is optimal for group living. Infighting expends precious energy, which could be better used to gather food, raise young, and fortify the group. Fligh...

Therefore, a third behavior option evolved in individuals to limit fight and flight before it became a problem for the group. This option is “internal inhibition.” An individual may be inclined to take action, but an automatic internal braking mechanism...

For hundreds of thousands of years, inhibition was enforced in groups with a devastating sanction: ostracism. The possibility of being thrown out of the group was—and still is—a powerful inhibitor against taking action deemed inappropriate by the group. An offensive behavior, such as expressing sexual interest in the...

In The Egalitarians: Human and Chimpanzee, anthropologist Margaret Power comments on the severe disinclination of modern day hunter-gatherers to jeopardi...

“The sanction of ostracism is powerfully effective in human societies that are organized around positive social relationships,” Power explains. Even temporary ostracism is found by modern-day indigenous ...

In modern times, speaking to a woman you don’t know causes you negligible risk, even if it doesn’t go well. In a city of millions, you are unlikely to see this person ever again. Yet the primitive part of your mind still perceives this action as dangerous, as socially inappropriate. Your mind sends you signals: “This isn’t safe. You’re jeopardizing your position in the group.” Your mind is efficiently in...

Understanding Thoughts and Feelings When you perceive a situation as dangerous, your mind and body are affected in three primary ways: PHYSICAL. Your heart rate increases, your breathing quickens, and you feel tension in your chest. Emotions are expressed and experienced through bodily sensations, such as “butterflies” or feelings of dread.

MENTAL. This typically takes the form of worry. Automatic thoughts come into your mind such as, “I’m going to make a fool of myself.” You make excuses as to why you shouldn’t take action, such as, “There are too many people around” or “She looks like she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

BEHAVIORal. As thoughts and feelings arise, your behavior is affected. You may feel paralyzed, unable to walk over to a woman and talk with her. If you’re introduced to an attractive woman, you may find yourself talking too fast, too quietly, or excessively agreeing with everything she says. You may find you’re...

Changes in physical and mental states are often referred to as “arousal.” This doesn’t necessarily mean sexual arousal; rather, it refers to an activation of biological mechanisms that prime the body for some type of action.

Physical and mental arousal is automatic. Trying not to experience physical and mental arousal doesn’t work. In fact, it can make things worse.

As you go to take action, feelings inevitably arise in your body. If you’re trying not to feel those feelings, you are more likely to interpret those feelings as a signal that something is wrong or that you will fail. That can trigger negative thoughts in your mind. “This isn’t going to work,” you may think to yourself. Those thoughts can activate even more uneasy feelings in your body. This escalates in a loop, until you are...

Trying to think or not think certain thoughts also doesn’t work. You can’t convince yourself to believe something that you know to be untrue. No matter how hard you try to believe that elephants can fly, there is no way you’ll wake up one day and truly believe in your heart that elephants can fly...

The thoughts and physical sensations that occur during social interactions are essentially out of your control. This may seem like bad news, but it’s also good news. Stop worrying about it. Relax. Accept it. Whatever you’re feeling, go ahe...

You’re not trying to change how you feel or what you think. You cannot make a commitment to not feel certain feelings or to not think certain thoughts. But you can make a commitment to take small, manage...

Principle #1: The thoughts and feelings that arise during social interactions are automatic and involuntary. Trying to not experience them doesn’t work.

2: HOW TO STOP TRYING AND SIMPLY DO The first time I was able to interact with a woman on my own, there were 20 things I could have done differently. But none of that was important. All that mattered was that I took action.

That day in the park, I did something that would make all the difference: I stopped trying to get an outcome. Instead of trying to make her like me, I decided I would simply walk over to her and tell her I wanted to have a conversation. By shifting the focus from trying to get a specific response to simply taking action, I was accepting every possible outcome.