Nothing can replace actually going out there and doing something. Nothing. That said, a LOT of learning CAN be done from. well, anywhere. If you can create a realistic world within your head, you can practice all sorts of scenarios, hone your skills, and learn what will work and what won't. Think of it as your own private holodeck. Just don't talk about it that way. Ever.

Beat Down!

Ok, brace yourself. This is for your own good.

YOU WORTHLESS TOAD OF A MAN WHATSA MATTA WID YA GIT THAT ASS IN GEAR OR I'LL RIDE YA LIKE A LAWNMOWIN' JOHN DEERE THAT'S MY BRAND!

Ah, that felt kinda good. Cathartic even.

But seeing as you're curled on the floor crying, not so much for you (yes, I know you probably did nothing more than raise an eyebrow, but work with me here).

I've got a message in that odd rant. And it's not about berating or anything like that - in fact, as you know, I'm all about POSITIVE thinking.

Rather, that's an example of exactly what you SHOULDN'T be saying to yourself, ever.

Yet if you go out and fail with a woman, odds are high you're saying some variation of it - without the corny imagery and a few more swears, I'd imagine.

The Right Alternative

There's something you should be doing instead. Something which, instead of freezing you next time or causing undue stress, actually INCREASES your success rate.

Something called visualization. We'll get to that in a moment.

First, if you EVER berate yourself when things aren't going the way you want them to, you're holding yourself back. You're framing the situation in a way GUARANTEED to fall short.

You're thinking only of the end goal, not the journey.

You're thinking of failure, not learning.

And you'll NEVER learn without mistakes, and you'll NEVER continue if you see those mistakes as failures.

Practice!

What everyone needs when picking up ANY new skill is practice. This practice is a little harder to stick to, because when you err it's in front of at least one other person, instead of alone in your room with your guitar or whatever.

But you've GOT to fight through that. You've GOT to practice like your sex life depended on it - which of course, it does.

But actual practice isn't enough. There just aren't enough opportunities, enough chances, to hone your skills in a timely way. Not within a very satisfying time FRAME.

Back we go, straight to visualization.

The brain is one of most amazing things we've ever discovered in the universe - it's complex, brilliant, fascinating, and about a thousand other glowing superlatives we don't have time for.

And it's also a bunch of dumb gray matter.

Dumb? Yeah. Why? The brain doesn't know the difference between reality and imagination.

In other words, if you look at a picture of a triangle or you imagine the same triangle eyes closed, your brain lights up in the exact same way. If you make a free throw or you just imagine making a free throw, same thing.

No matter WHAT the task, action, or object, the reality of it and the VISUALIZATION of it are IDENTICAL within your head.

Now that doesn't mean you can just sit your ass on the couch and IMAGINE picking up girls, because you need more than just your brain to get success.

You need your body to remember the right posture, gestures, etc, and that comes from real world practice, nothing else.

You also have all sorts of anxiety triggers which work in VERY different ways when dealing with a real world situation, so you need actual practice to get to know and control THOSE, and build your confidence.

Nevertheless, visualization is a HUGELY powerful tool, used by just about anyone who has ever achieved success in a FIELD.

Ray Kroc, founder of MickyD's? Used it. Ted Williams? Credited most of his hits to visualization (insert favorite freezer geezer joke here). Beethoven? The man was deaf when he wrote his 5th Symphony, for god's sake, how do you think he did it?

EVERYONE who knows ANYTHING about success gives props to visualization. Never mind all the theories that people try to attach to it - we're not here for a philosophical debate.

It works. That's enough for me. Use it.

Two flavors

There are two basic ways to employ visualization. Before and After.

We're going to start with after, because it's simpler.

As promised. After!

Here, when an experience is still fresh in your mind (like on the car ride home, or just after stepping in the door) you want to replay the whole thing.

Don't skimp - if you're going to make this work, you need to really CONCENTRATE and get VIVID.

It's not enough to picture the girl's face and hear her words and yours. The more detailed the picture, the truer the experience.

So take the time to build up the environment in your mind. What's on the wall? What music is playing? Where are you sitting or standing, and who's nearby? The more detailed you can get, the better.

Once you've got a fairly sound environment, go ahead and play out the encounter. First person, third person, doesn't matter. Observe what worked. Especially observe what didn't.

After you've recreated everything, go back and CHANGE comments here and there. Use a new OPENER. Change your follow up to make it more funny, less offensive, whatever would be an improvement on the original.

The nice thing about this after-the-fact visualization is we humans are actually quite intelligent creatures - especially when it comes to social situations - and, given your previous contact and experience, you'll usually be able to guess RIGHT about how any particular woman will react as you switch the stimuli around.

So you can use visualization to change one encounter, one practice, into MULTIPLE encounters - basically without limit. Flirt away, with ZERO repercussions and a chance to see how all sorts of material actually play out in the "field."

And after After, Before!

Post-practice is the best way to improve, but pre-practice visualization is the best way to up your chances THAT NIGHT.

VERY few things can up your confidence more dramatically than knowing EXACTLY what you're going to do before you do it, and having a pretty good idea of what will happen as a result.

THIS is the sort of visualization most often practiced by sports figures, the way they get ready for a game or an at-bat.

If you've ever played baseball at anything above little league level, you know coaches will tell you to IMAGINE your home run, to SEE the pitch, play it out enough that you KNOW what it'll be and you KNOW exactly what you're going to do with it.

Be Like Mike?

That's just what Barry Bonds does before each of his homers, or if you like your stars natural, Albert Pujols does it too. All of 'em.

You want to do the same thing with the ladies. Create the environment you'll be entering, and again, play out various tactics, comments, and scenarios before you head out the door. See how they all go.

You know longer have the advantage of knowing just what lady you'll be talking to - you don't know if it's gonna be a fastball or a curve - but you can practice your game on various different types of ladies.

You'll find that different types will have all sorts of different reactions to the same behavior - great, once you get skilled at mapping those reactions BEFORE you say anything, the better you'll be at picking the right one.

And the more you practice before, during, and after encounters, the better you'll get at ALL aspects of seduction.

Remember to keep it fun, and get out there. Practice in the real world most of all - but use the ones constructed inside your head as the best dress rehearsal.