I’ve found from working with hundreds of clients that motivation is NOT what drives behavior change. Trying to change too many habits at once more often than not leads to failure, discouragement, and not trying again.
Habits are more important than discipline or willpower.
Our society teaches us to view life improvement in a way that is very black and white. We love all or nothing thinking: either I’m going to stick perfectly to my new diet, or it’s not worth trying. People see anything short of radical life change in every domain as a failure, when in reality, we improve our lives by making tiny changes consistently. Why is the dieter who decides to add one vegetable per meal more likely in the long run to end up healthy than the one who decides they’re never eating a single gram of carbohydrates for the rest of their life? Why is the person who decides to start with one pushup a day tends to do better over time than the one that commits to 6 Crossfit workouts per week? Because for success, momentum is more important than motivation.
What often looks like luck is the result of hard work and daily habits constructed over a long period of time. You don’t get lucky; you accumulate small victories and constantly iterate from there. And this is really important, because how effective you are in life translates to how effective you are with women.
Expertise comes from practice, not from talent.
Your plans should focus on the process more so than the outcome. Making an approach is what you have control over; getting a number is not. Keep everything under your control and you’re significantly more likely to succeed. So instead of having an approach only count if you get a number, make it only count if you ask for a number.
Starting small is key when you’re improving your social life, and this is why our advice when you’re learning isn’t to go out and try to change everything about yourself, it’s to meet more people and have more fun. Setting the goal of meeting people and having fun is the best way to ensure that you focus on your process rather than the outcome.
