You’ve suffered from social anxiety disorder and tried to treat it for years. The problem and infatuation with removing anxiety go hand-in-hand. What you resist persists sometimes making problem-solving ineffective.

From a young age we’re tricked to believe in emotional regulation. We believe adults are mature, stable, and happy because of emotional control. “Stop crying and being a baby.” “Don’t be angry.” And of course my dreaded, “Don’t be a scaredy cat.” Emotional regulation has lead to your search here today as you try discover the cure of your social anxiety.

What are the affects of battling your anxiety? What’s the secret to better socialize and start living a meaningful life?

The Hidden Danger of a Social Anxiety Disorder

“Cowards die many times before their deaths.” – William Shakespeare

”To understand the world one must not be worrying about one’s self.” – Albert Einstein

Social anxiety affects you on the outside. You’re in a conversation looking at someone, but really you’re looking within, monitoring what’s going on. “Am I getting more anxious? Is my nervousness dropping? What do they think of me?”

A battle with a social anxiety disorder is life-limiting. Imagine yourself at a banquet of delicious meats and foods on the table with anxiety sitting beside you. If you battle anxiety, both hands grasp the knife and fork for weapons as you focus on slicing anxiety to death. Anxiety sometimes gets hit only to morph into a more intense form. You swing harder only to tire yourself out – all the while you miss a delightful moment of treats.

Your battle with anxiety consumes plentiful amounts of energy that diverts your mind and body from activities, daily tasks, and relationships meaningful to you. If someone was to choke you right now, of all the things you could do (look out the window, scratch your head, laugh), you’d be obsessed with one: breathing again. Fighting anxiety is like being choked as it narrows your repertoire of behavior. There’s a banquet to enjoy in life instead of fighting anxiety.

In conversation you can focus on learning what someone does for a career, how your friend spends free time, or listening to make someone feel heard to live out a value of being friendly, but instead you fight anxiety. This makes a social anxiety disorder an awkward problem. If you have the disorder as characterized by a resistance to anxiety, you’re not present in the conversation and people notice it.

How Anxiety Experts Deal with Anxiety

”If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.” – George S. Patton, World War II general

“Fear is natural. Be with it.” – Thomas Leonard, founder of CoachVille

I picked up a social anxiety disorder at 14 years old. I’m now 26 years old and don’t consider myself cured. “What?! You can’t teach people then you jerk!”

The moment you consider yourself treated from social anxiety or other forms of anxiety is when you’re vulnerable. It’s the same mind-trap as wanting to banish anxiety.

Stephen Hayes, co-creator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), was a psychologist when he developed a panic disorder. In an interview I did with him, he applied advice from cognitive therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), but they felt to him as if he had spat into a hurricane.

Here’s one example. CBT uses the term “cognitive restructuring” to be more rationale about anxiety-inducing situations. Shifting a thought of “I’m going to look like an idiot at the party” to “I’m extremely nervous at this party, but I’ll leave in one piece tonight and probably make some new friends!” wasn’t very helpful for him. You may have tried the same restructuring that helped in the short-term only to find the spit flying back at you soon after.

One day Dr Hayes just became an assistant professor when he was in a department meeting watching the professors angrily fight with each other. He raised his hand to ask a question, but couldn’t make a sound come out of his mouth. After 30 seconds, no sound was made and the meeting resumed.

“That event,” says Dr Hayes, “is not what created my anxiety disorder.” If you get humiliated talking to a hot blonde, it doesn’t mean you’re doomed to a lifetime of anxiety, but it can start an internal battle where you fight the internal experience of anxiety. You start to project the experience where you see yourself fainting and dying in the future.

Imagine a young boy freely running around a playground. Suddenly he falls into a dark, dirty hole called “anxiety”. It’s not his fault he fell into the hole. How the hole got there doesn’t matter because it’s just there.

The child is scared of the black ditch because one day he heard bad creatures live in the dark. Afraid of this, he quickly decides to escape by digging. 10 minutes later he looks up to see no progress made so he digs more dirt out and digs faster. Sweat beads down his forehead.

One hour of strenuous digging later, he glances up with his glassy eyes only to see he’s further from freedom. The child is now more afraid than before.

Has digging hard (attempts to conquer anxiety) freed you? I doubt it has because you’re reading this article hoping to cure a social phobia. Have a pad and pen handy because in this article I’ll ask you to do a lot of tough and fulfilling work that’s counter-intuitive to what you’ve done most of your life.

How to End Suffering Forever

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” – Seneca, 1st century Roman philosopher

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.” – The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Neibuhr

Anxiety sufferers believe anxiety causes pain and must be gone before they can live a meaningful life. Self-talk of social anxiety sufferers include: “Before I can talk with that girl, I need to feel confident”, “I need to be comfortable to get on stage and speak”, and “I can’t make friends as long as I’m a nervous wreck”.

You may believe you can’t make friends or chat with cute girls until this yucky thing that is anxiety disappears. That’s what you’ve been lead to believe by self-help gurus who pronounce you have to think and feel a certain way to achieve a goal. Georg Eifert and John Forsyth, co-authors of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety Disorders, wrote something worth burning into memory: “Feeling good is not a requirement for living good.”

When you believe you must feel good to live good, you battle anxiety. The truth is: anxiety doesn’t cause pain – your struggle with anxiety creates undue pain.

Suffering forms from pain and nonacceptance according to Linehan, author of Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder. Ultimate suffering is suicide, an attempt to end pain from nonacceptance. You suffer when you don’t want to be hurt, when you don’t want to be anxious, when you don’t want to fear.

You don’t need to be fearless to have a great social life. You don’t need to be fearless to contribute. You can be fear-ridden and live a meaningful life. “You don’t need to think this way or feel that way to be free of social anxiety,” said Dr Hayes. “Instead of wanting social anxiety to disappear and then you can be with yourself and others, it turns out you can go directly and quickly to the end if you compassionately hold your insides.”

Anxiety does not mean something is wrong you – it’s the approach of battling anxiety that causes suffering. Sexual abuse is one unfortunate event in life that causes trauma yet it doesn’t always lead to being broken or living a sexually suppressed life. Victims of sexual abuse can feel anxiety in sexual situations yet live as they please. Psychological health is not the absence of trauma, pain, and negative experiences.

The difference between a free outgoing person and someone shy is not the experience of anxiety, but if the anxiety is held onto, battled with, and pushed away. Escapism constricts your social life because your internal experiences are inescapable. You cannot run from yourself. Drop the mindset of “curing anxiety” altogether. “I’ve learned to never say no to anxiety,” said Dr Hayes in my interview with him. “If anxiety wants to show up, it’s perfectly welcome to do so.”

My question to you is: are you willing to make room for anxiety to be in your life?

Why Doing What You’re Anxious About Works

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” – Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytical psychology

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” – Fr. Alfred D’Souza in Happiness Is A Journey

Do the thing you’re anxious about and anxiety will rot away. That’s a truth of fear and a better lesson self-help teaches, yet the underlying message is to conquer fear and anxiety.

Firstly, fear and anxiety differ. Fear promotes action in the present while anxiety anticipates the future. You can fear being punched in the head by a muscle-jacked boyfriend if you approach a hot girl and he pushes you, but worrying about being punched by that guy before you approach is anxiety.

Fear and anxiety reduce when you experience what you’re afraid of. Neither emotion is worse than the other. A skydiver will likely fear his tenth jump less than his first and a guy who approaches a hundred women will be less anxious than if he had approached none. This is exposure and it works at living with anxiety.

You didn’t learn to ride a bike by reading or thinking about it. You crashed, you fell, you got hurt. There’s no other way than direct experience to ride a bike.

“Exposure therapy” has you repeat contact with what you fear in a safe environment until the fear is extinct or minimized. If you’re petrified to leave the house, it might begin by putting your head out the window, sitting on your verandah, or walking around the garden. If you’re afraid of cafes, day one could be to order a coffee, day two is to order a coffee while holding eye contact, while day three also gets you to ask how the barista’s day is going.

How can you use exposure to step into your social phobia? List three steps on a pad. It could be: 1) go to a mall and sit down, 2) make eye contact with 10 people who pass you, and 3) say “Hey” on the tenth person.

You may feel your heart increasing right now with just the thought of exposure. Don’t battle it. The battling is what causes suffering. Be mindful of your increased heart-rate and shallow breathe. Be okay with it. Continue to write your three steps.

The discomfort experienced signals your evolution. Something different is happening in your life right now! Remember Jung’s words: “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” Whenever I feel discomfort, I acknowledge a transformation – an evolution – is occurring inside me that’ll produce a different a result to what I’ve had in the past.

Be careful making exposure another cure to social anxiety. Cognitive therapies use exposure to reduce anxiety and treat symptoms, but ACT uses it with the purpose of getting you to be okay with feeling anxiety. That’s a big difference.

Anxiety is natural so it makes sense to not suffer with attempts to conquer it. Bootcamp students get a great feeling experience from exposure therapy. We might go to a bar or club with no intent but to be there. The student says “Hey!” to a group and keeps walking. The goal is to be okay with feeling afraid of meeting people so you can live a purposeful life. The belief you shouldn’t be afraid of new people only increases suffering.

If you do what you worry about to remove anxiety, is that another short-term tool to battle anxiety? I suggest you use exposure not to reduce anxiety, but to experience anxiety, feel how it’s normal, and believe a purposeful life is possible with it. Anxiety is natural so be with it.

Lesson: make doing what you’re anxious about a feeling experience that enriches life.

How to Free Yourself From the Fight with Social Anxiety

“One cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.” – Albert Einstein

“He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.” – Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War

Creatures relate to things based on their attributes like speed, color, and size. Humans do too but we can abstract these perceptions. We often do not take a fast beating heart for what it is: a fast beating heart. If you’re heart is thumping hard, you may infer you’re about to have a panic attack. Once you learn to categorize something within, it seems like a thing. Anxiety to you seems real and dangerous.

In the past century since Darwin’s work, we’ve categorized anxiety as an unhealthy emotional affect of worry. Anxiety is seen as bad due to the surge of pop-psychology books in the 80s, positive-thinking tapes in the 90s, and now blogging in the 21st century where anyone can chant self-help advice. Western society teaches you to master your emotions, control your thoughts, and move from unpleasant states through manipulation.

Answer these questions to do with categorizing emotions:

• Is “joy” good or bad?
• Is “sadness” good or bad?
• Is “anxiety” good or bad?

You probably answered “good”, “bad”, and “bad”. But is it bad to be sad when your friend dies? Is it bad to be anxious when you’re in a new environment and meet someone you don’t know?

The self-help myth and belief that anxiety is bad cause you to try cut it out like a parasite from your body. You read endless articles on dealing with social anxiety, post in forums desperately seeking help, and beg for anything to alleviate you of this disease. All this makes you more anxious.

You fight anxiety because of the belief and categorization it’s bad. You can also take this control approach because it’s an adaptive method to survive in the external world.

You fear climbing a high cliff for survival and pain reduction. Bruce Chorpita, Professor of Psychology at UCLA, and David Barlow, Professor of Psychology at Boston University, in a 1998 study called The Development of Anxiety confirm a control approach to make life right is important to healthy well-being. Nothing is unhealthy about avoiding an unchained dog growling loudly or taking an aspirin to alleviate a headache.

Problems arise when control is used at an extreme level as rigid thinking and behaving do not work. Not approaching a cute girl because you’re nervous does not work. Calling in sick because you’re afraid to give a presentation does not work. Saying you’re not in the mood to go to party does not work when you’re really staying home to avoid your fear of dancing. It’s once you avoid crossing a bridge because your friend jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge that control doesn’t work.

Anxiety and other feelings like anger typically understood as “bad” are not bad. They typify human experience. The belief you need to think and feel positive all the time is inhuman. Emotions don’t have an off and off switch. Our emotional spectrum of fear, sadness, happiness, anger, and disgust (Darwin’s five emotions) makes you human. Those who accept and experience the five emotions and their lesser ones without defense are healthy.

Here’s a quick exercise to do in this moment. Try to make yourself happy. Give yourself a minute. Now try to make yourself anxious. Give yourself another minute to create this state.

Did you make yourself happy or anxious? You didn’t directly create the emotion. You induced either by remembering a happy or anxious memory, which created the emotion. You experienced something that triggered happiness and something else that lead to anxiety. Emotions like anxiety naturally arise from experience and cannot be easily controlled like a power switch.

One point I must make clear is regulating actions of an emotion is completely different to emotional regulation. It’s okay to accept the one second of anger when your son doesn’t wash the dishes, but it isn’t okay to abuse him about it. You have the power to control the action-side of anger by breathing to gain clarity, thinking about the need that caused your anger, and being assertive.

A Breakthrough Model for Social Freedom

“He who is brave is free.” – Seneca

”Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.” – Voltaire, 17th century writer on social reform

You now know to not resist anxiety, but if you try to not think of a pink elephant, you’re stuck thinking about a pink elephant. What should you do instead of obsessing about the pink elephant that is anxiety?

Before we can answer this, let’s first understand what you were trying to achieve by removing anxiety. Here’s a quote from my special member’s only report The Only Cure to Social Anxiety, available in part three of Big Talkers, where for the first time this breakthrough model of social freedom is revealed and simply applied to socializing:

You’ve heard the terms “social anxiety” and “fear”, but what words are their opposite? You probably think terms like “calmness” is the opposite to “social anxiety” and “confidence” is the opposite to “fear”.

You’ve been “working on yourself” for a few years now and banish fear in pursuit of confidence . You try to erase anxiety in pursuit of calmness. Such actions are driven by the belief that an opposite – more ideal – state of anxiety exists. This belief drives your fear in social situations.

You can see this traditional model to deal with social anxiety below:

Continuing on in the report:

What if I told you an opposite term didn’t exist? What effect would that have on your belief system and actions?

If social anxiety and fear had no opposite, you wouldn’t pursue another state. You wouldn’t seek out calmness to move away from it’s polar opposite of social anxiety. You wouldn’t seek out confidence to move away from it’s polar opposite of fear.

With anxiety and fear being their own states with no opposite, you couldn’t make them transform or disappear into another state. They would simply exist because it’s natural.

What does the new model look like then?

If anxiety is a natural experience to be held, the other end of the “confidence spectrum” becomes freedom. You’re free to experience what you feel!

Freedom is not an alleviation of barriers, but complete acceptance of them. You don’t have to like the barriers. You don’t have to like anxiety, but it’s your choice if you drop the tug-of-war rope with anxiety and allow it to be there.

The problem is not anxiety, but the desire to avoid anxiety. Attempts to move from social anxiety towards confidence, calmness, even freedom – whatever it maybe – snares you in the same trap of fighting anxiety. This new model of socializing and living happy aims to not push you from social anxiety towards social freedom, but to move you to accept social anxiety, which is freedom.

You can quickly comprehend how free you are by asking: “Where’s my focus when anxiety arises?” The free person sees what’s important to them (value-based living) while the anxiety sufferer battles with anxiety (desire to avoid social anxiety).

A girl who thinks everyone analyzes her is not socially free – she will be afraid to speak and socialize. A girl who says what she feels and speaks her mind even when she’s afraid is socially freer than the first girl. Social freedom is therefore not an absence of social anxiety, but the absence of a desire to avoid social anxiety. The later girl lives a freer social life because he knows anxiety and fear is okay to exist. How can you too live a free social life once and for all?

How to Live a Meaningful Life and Treat a Social Anxiety Disorder with ACT

“Has fear ever held a man back from anything he really wanted?” – George Bernard Shaw, recipient of the 1925 Nobel Prize in literature

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” – Ambrose Redmoon, rock band manager and writer

You don’t decide to feel anxiety – you decide to live a meaningful life. Pain exists either way. The push-pull of fear and love is expected if you move towards what you care about like friends and social freedom. Your decision is not whether you feel anxiety, but if you want to reflect on your past and feel proud. How do you go about this? You use the ACT formula.

The ACT formula below is part of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. CureTogether.org, a place where patients of almost any health problem come together to share their self-experiments, found Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to be one of the most effective yet hidden solutions for anxiety treatment.

There are three components to start living a meaningful life when you suffer from social anxiety: Accept, Choose Directions, and Take Action.

Accept. Follow the serenity creed by accepting what you can and can’t change. If you get anxious around attractive women because you’re short and you think women find shortness unattractive, as erroneous as that belief is, you can’t change your height and need to accept it.

By accepting your height, you don’t resign to the thought you’ll forever suck with women. It means you end your struggle with what is. This creates space for you to do something productive like learn the many other things women want in men.

Acceptance is your willingness to openly live. It is not resignation to your anxiety, a feeling, or one decision. It is a choice you make to approach life each day. There may be a law you hate, but you accept it and openly live with it. Acceptance transforms your suffering into plain pain. Acceptance ends your battle with social anxiety.

Besides, how has resistance to anxiety gone for you? You struggle with the internal battle doing things like screen phone calls, skip parties, and shop at the least busiest of times. The anxiety temporarily subsides but then it explodes straight up again in another situation.

You’re not a bad or messed up person because of your battle with anxiety and use of strategies to deal with it. You’re just using ineffective methods. Can you see how resistance is not working for you and why this first step of “Accept” is important for you?

Choose Directions. Where do you want to be one year from now?

Viktor Frankl was a man confined to life-threatening barriers yet used choice, acceptance, and values to survive and live a valuable life. Frankl was a prisoner of war transported between Nazi camps relentless as the other. Prisoners were stripped naked, called a number instead of their name, starved, placed in gas chambers, and put in dehumanizing moments.

Fellow prisoners committed suicide to avoid the suffering of another day with the Nazis. Some prisoners lay in bed refusing to get up as they submitted to Nazi beatings. Statistic experts estimate there was a 3% chance of survival.

Frankl noticed, however, a common thread amongst those who endured the pain: they had reason to live. What did Frankl do? He stood outside to give a psychotherapeutic speech on concentration camps, studied and helped fellow prisoners, and did what he could to give life purpose. Surviving prisoners imagined reunion with families or completion of a valuable project back in their home country. No Nazi could steal these visions from the prisoners.

Freud said man is driven from sexual instincts but Frankl developed Logotherapy and says your deepest desire is purpose. Carl Jung echoed similar sediments saying, “The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

Again I ask you… Where do you want to be one year from now?

You may struggle to head in a direction because of your language that describes anxiety. It’s typical for anxiety sufferers to be low on life consumed with the anxiety battle. I’ve heard and said things like, “I can’t go to parties until my anxiety is fixed”, “I’d do public speaking, but I’m afraid”, and “That girl is hot and I’d like to talk to her, but I don’t want to embarrass myself”.

Why have you previously wanted anxiety to be gone? To be less anxious? How uninspiring! You know at some level that less anxiety through techniques, anti-depressant medication, or some other remedy doesn’t create a richer life.

How would it feel if your tombstone had written on it:

“[Your name] battled anxiety for 14 years. He dedicated each day to researching techniques, taking medication, and doing what’s possible to dodge anxiety-inducing situations. He had few friends, never volunteered to help the less fortunate, and never married. He was never able to lie down on the beach with the sunset and cool breeze blowing through his hair because he never conquered anxiety.”

Write your tombstone if you died today. We’ll get to the second part of this tombstone exercise soon.

In the meantime, here’s another useful exercise for change to this new model of social anxiety. Spend five or more minutes now writing your list of Life Costs of Anxiety Avoidance. This list is to include as many costs as possible of what you’ve not had because you’ve avoided anxiety. Common life costs of my students battling social anxiety include:

• No partner ever
• No fun at social events
• No promotions at work from weak behavior
• Abuse from strangers for awkwardness
• The frustration from not voicing needs
• A disbelief great goals can be achieved

To further help you choose directions, ask yourself,“What values do I hold?” These values can be outside of relationships because anxiety affects your entire life. You can avoid going to university from your anxiety of being afraid to meet fellow students.

Values are different to goals because a goal can be achieved while a value may never end. You achieve a goal of making friends but you can’t complete the value of being friendly. Values are a path you go on. You may like to think of a value as an intention.

Example values are below along with questions to stimulate value-extraction and the problem of anxiety avoidance to show its affect on what’s meaningful:

1. Example: Loving brother/sister and parent. Questions: What type of brother/sister/parent do you want to be? How do you want to be around family? Problem: I’ve avoided talking about the elephant in the room (what everyone knows is there, but ignores) and prevented a deep connection with family because it’s scary.
2. Example: Great friend. Questions: What does it mean for you to be a great friend? What is it about friendship that’s valuable to you? Problem: Skipped my anxiety by not approaching people and accepting invitations to events that’s lead to few friends and low-quality relations with current friends.
3. Example: Help people with my career. Questions: What do you care about with work? What work do you like? Problem: I’ve stayed at home to avoid my anxiety that comes from meeting with clients and co-workers.
4. Example: Learn new skills. Questions: What would you like to learn? Why learn or undergo training? Problem: Stagnation and unfulfillment from a non-acceptance of anxiety to do with failure.

Take 10 minutes to list various values. Your answers are extremely important and guide you to purposeful living. But don’t let the importance of values bog you down because you can shape your answers later on. Hold values playfully to do this exercise because life and purpose is fun.

If you haven’t located your values, go inside the pain where you struggle the most then flip it over by saying, “What would I have to not care about to not have this pain be hurtful?” If your pain is social anxiety, you may not have to care about being with people, contribution, and loving others. Values reside in fear.

Your Life Costs of Anxiety Avoidance list motivates you to step into anxiety while your list of values motivate and direct you where to go.

Take Action. Once you accept what you can and can’t change and choose directions valuable to you, action is the last step. Act on your values.

You likely already act on your values. Your values are better clarified by what you do. If you avoid your anxiety, you probably value avoiding anxiety. With anxiety, however, it muddies up what’s meaningful to you.

A commitment to take this third and last step of action is itself a value that shows you care about your life.

Spend 10 minutes now to build an action plan that puts you on a path aligned with your chosen directions. (I told you I’d ask you to do plenty of life-fulfilling exercises.) In your action plan, list the first action-step to get you started, which is critical to build momentum and finally live meaningfully.

If you value family, a step could be to phone family members to organize a date for dinner by the end of next month. If you value being friendly, maybe a step for you is to get How to Win Friends and Influence People and Big Talk. Put together a concrete action plan to get going.

Unless you do something different, whether it’s follow ACT or some other treatment plan, you will not generate different results in your life. When you follow these steps, you’ll shift from emotional regulation to emotional acceptance. You’ll go from anxiety reduction to a fully functional being with values and goals meaningful to you.

The “cure” to social anxiety disorder isn’t accepting anxiety to remove it. That’s the same trap. Forget curing anxiety altogether even though it will likely reduce. Live aligned with your values and meaningful goals. It’s not easy. You either be friendly or you do not. There’s no “I tried to socialize” or “I tried to be nice to people”.

Your willingness to live meaningfully is a choice you make through action. Feelings and thoughts come and go, but where you travel is a decision made daily with your feet. Will you join me at the banquet beside anxiety?

Recommended Resources

1. Fellow Aussie Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap, has a good overview of ACT I recommend you read if you want to further explore this therapy.
2. For a complete step-by-step guide to go from anxious and lonely to effortlessly making friends, get my Big Talk course.
3. Another good resource (saying so myself) is Big Talkers, particularly part three where you’ll access my interview with Dr Stephen Hayes quoted in this article.

Question of the Day

What will you do this week to live a more meaningful life instead of fighting social anxiety?

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. 14 Social Skills Resources for an Amazing Social Life
2. On Achieving Goals – Part 2: How to Be Self-Motivated
3. On Achieving Goals – Part 1: Defining What You Truly Want
4. The Decision Tree of Effective Leadership to Create Freedom and Independence
5. Review of Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

There’s your first barrier that stops you from figuring out what men want in women when dating and in relationships. As long as you try to figure out men through your womanly experiences and understandings, you’ll forever remain confused.

Men differ from women. Before you give me a Nobel Prize for that remarkable statement, understand that women tend to operate from their limiting beliefs in dating and relationships. They apply their reality of chemistry and connection to a man’s reality, forgetting a male’s emotional psychology is completely different to their own.

If you cook, clean, and shop for a man in hope he likes you, you’ll be ineffective at triggering attraction and other important responses men want to feel around women. You wouldn’t feel attracted to a guy who only sat around watching football drinking beer so don’t become the female equivalent.

To figure out what men want in women, put aside your preconceived notions about dating and relationships then listen. Men will also benefit from reading this article because it helps you, if you’re a guy, better understand your desires so you can build better relationships and attract quality women.

Men Want Only Sex

Too many women believe the only thing a man wants in a woman is sex. Men want so much more. Remember what I said earlier about judging from your experiences and perspective?

A man may only desire sex from you because you focus on physical qualities. When your attractiveness depends on dressing sexy for him and sexual comments, you’re seen as a friend with benefits. You invoke a caveman response from him. This satisfies some women some of the time, but you might want more.

Many men (or should I say boys?) have yet to evolve on an emotional level. They seek only physical attraction because their emotions are blocked. They don’t know how to connect at an emotional level. Imagine putting on a pair of green glasses. It doesn’t matter what colors exist, everything is seen green. A person’s lack of emotional development blinds him from that level of awareness.

As confusing as it is to women who project their own qualities onto men, physical involvement is unequal to a relationship. A man can be physically involved with a woman and want nothing more. I believe this is what forms the belief that men only want sex. The problem with this belief is it overlooks other areas of attraction men want in women. Physical attraction is simply one part of an intimate relationship.

Nearly all men ultimately want a fulfilling relationship with one woman. A guy may not want this now or in the near future, but ultimately that is what he desires. If he says otherwise, he is usually emotionally immature or yet to meet a great woman.

The Secret is Attraction

Every man wants to feel significant, important, desired, and sexy. There’s a broad array of characteristics great men want in women that lead to one experience. The secret feeling a man wants to have around you is one of attraction.

You may think of attraction as “chemistry”. It’s the energetic charge between two people that evokes an animalistic urge. When you become what men want in women, men feel attracted to you.

Attraction can be temporary, but when you understand its principles and continually refine them (by re-reading this article and purchasing books on the subject), you make attraction long-term that leads to commitment and a satisfying relationship!

You probably know a few women who seem to effortlessly pull men towards them. They easily attract men through their looks or personality. These women understand attraction, even though they probably didn’t learn it from a source like this article.

Three Types of Attraction

Men can be attracted to you in three primary areas. We crave for all three in a partner.

As I mentioned earlier, there is physical attraction. Men are turned on more than women by visuals. It’s important to dress well, get your hair beautiful, be slightly tanned, show off your figure, and exercise.

Are you not that beautiful? You can still improve it by learning from other women. You may also have an advantage over attractive women!

Beautiful women tend to identify with their looks and become insecure. Feeling insecure about your looks is a bigger turn off than looks itself. Attractive women, in general, go through life easier than less attractive women so they have yet to develop the two other areas of attraction that lead to satisfying relationships

Guys tend to want women who are attractive, but lack personality, for the short-term. You cannot have a relationship with a body part. Looks is only one piece of the attraction puzzle.

The second type of attraction is intellectual. Intellectual attraction comes from more rational, logical means controllable through words and actions. Think of the bimbo blonde who has a peanut for her brain – that’s the opposite to an intellectually attractive woman. It’s a pain to live with someone unintelligent. An attractive man wants a woman who holds a conversation with almost anyone, talks about his interests, regularly reads books, and teaches him valuable lessons.

The third type of attraction is emotional. If a guy suddenly becomes disinterested in you, a lack of emotional attraction is the problem. A real relationship fails to develop in the absence of emotional attraction. Ways to attract men emotionally involve high status behavior, teasing, playfulness, mystery, and unpredictability.

Deficiency in an area of attraction decreases a man’s interest in you. Intensify all three forms of attraction to hypnotize any man.

Since you can go elsewhere for advice to improve your physical looks, what I’ll teach you in this article on what men want in women builds your intellectual and emotional attraction to start a great relationship and keep it that way. You are discovering the secrets men wish you knew that society will not tell you.

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1. What Women Want in Men
2. How to Be Charming to Men and Women
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Wow! Talk about a crazy list of contrasting fears! The truth about fears is they are crazy and irrational. What fears do you experience that you think are unique? What fears drive you crazy?

You can fear one side of the story and the other at the same time. It is possible to simultaneously fear talking to someone new and not meeting new people because fear hides the truth. I will reveal the truth about fear to you in this article.

The experiences fear gives you is a smoke screen. It makes you irrational. The acronym for fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear does not want you to know the truth about itself and yourself.

Fear can immobilize your body. It paralyzes you from action and achieving what you want. You can want something, but fear sends what seems like a massive electromagnetic pulse through your body to shut down your ability to function. Unless you suffer from poor health, this is a facade, a survival mechanism to protect you from something that will not hurt you.

According to Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. in Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, there are five truths about fear. Whatever it is you fear, provided the fear is not physically dangerous like doing drugs, the following five truths apply:

Truth #1

The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow.

Fear is a survival mechanism hardwired into the human mind that makes you think danger and pain resides in the darkness of the unknown. Our ancestors feared when they ventured into new lands because the environments were unfamiliar and potentially life-endangering. Fear will continue to protect you as long as you grow emotionally and mentally. Do not want a fearless life if you desire to grow. As Thomas Leonard so bluntly put it: “Fear is natural. Be with it.”

Once you explore territory unknown to you, new fears arise. I know it is uncomfortable to hear that, but I am hear to tell you the truth about fear that it does not want you to know. It is more comforting and exciting to experience growth and live in fear than to live paralyzed by fear. Be excited to know that fear will exist if you live a life worth living.

Truth #2

The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.

Truth number two sounds contradictory to truth number one, but be assured that both truths are still truths. You fear because uncertainty looms over your ability to handle the situation. “Fear comes from uncertainty,” said William Congreve. “When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear.”

Fear will always exist in your life, but it does not have to exist in the things you do. When you do the thing you fear, whether it was a facade or not, you build confidence in your ability to handle the situation. Personal development expert Anthony Robbins said, “Do what you fear, and the death of fear is certain.” Action will conquer fear any day of the week, month, and year of your life. By acting in the face of fear, you transform the uncertain into the certain as the unknown becomes known.

Truth #3

The only way to feel better about myself is to go out and do it.

When ridden with fear, we reason that we will take action once we feel better about ourselves. “When I’m ready, I’ll…” “If I can… then I’ll…” “I’ll wait till I’m…”

You will not feel like a better person or build more self-belief in your ability until you do what you fear. Stop waiting for whatever it is you want to change! Change your ability to take action.

While self-esteem boosts you ability to take action, go the quicker and more direct route: take action to boost your self-esteem. Confidence builds on itself like a good financial investment leading to more positive feelings about yourself. You feel good about yourself when you dive into action. Stop wanting to be a fearless public speaker before speaking in public, for example. Do public speaking to become a fearless public speaker.

Truth #4

Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else.

It is comforting to hear truth number four. Reassuring statements have a danger to delude one from reality and the hard truth. Nonetheless, it is truth that everyone fears unfamiliar territory.

Every public speaker and writer I know suffers, or suffered, from fears and insecurities over the judgments of other people. These are strong, powerful people who do not let their fears stop them from reaching their life’s mission.

Fear wants you to think it is a unique psychological problem, but it really is an educational problem. Those around you and those you envy also experience, or once experienced, what you fear. The insecurities you feel are unique to you, unites you with everyone.

Truth #5

Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.

Although fear encompasses uncertainty, the certainty of living a fearful life is scarier. The fear of being ill is scarier than seeing a doctor. The fear of having a divorce is scarier than addressing a tough relationship problem. The fear of having no friends is scarier than approaching someone.

When you have a purpose greater than fear, you become courageous. “Courage is not the absence of fear,” said Ambrose Redmoon, “but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” Create a life mission that is more important than fear to compel yourself to face things you previously were scared to confront.

Repeat each of these truths at least 20 times every morning and night. When you continually affirm the truth, you will accept it as truth. You will no longer be tricked by fear.

I am excited to finally reveal the truth about fear to you and how fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. Follow the five truths in this article and you will see the light that fear hides from your eyes. The truth exists, you just need to see it. Live a fear-filled life!

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers
2. How to Not Care What People Are Thinking About You – and Release Your People-Magnetic Self Into the Conversation
3. What Women Want in Men
4. Inferiority Complex and the Self-Image

David DeAngelo starts off by letting readers know that his Double Your Dating ebook is not an encyclopedia, but a reference to being successful with women. It is not intended to be a complete resource on how men can attract women. It is, however, a mighty fine start. He provides strong foundations that any guy must know in order to become successful with women and dating.

After a decade’s experience in learning how to attract women, DeAngelo knows how guys approach the subject of learning how to be successful with women. Too often he has seen guys take a mental standpoint where they mistake themselves for knowing the information while they don’t put the skills to use. He mentions the need for guys to go out and practice the attraction skills he teaches. Many guys seeking advice from him are intelligent, but smart can be dumb. The skills he teaches, like any other, require practice. No great skill or canned pick-up lines will make a guy succeed with women and dating if they are not practiced, adapted, and understood.

There are many canned lines given in the ebook, which give you a strong frame of reference for creating your own lines, but “what to say” is not the basis behind the ebook. The ebook is not filled with lines; it is a holistic reference to become successful with women. The given lines act like the framework for tough situations, such as the complete guide on what to do and say to get a woman’s phone number. The ebook is a powerful reference to create the whole mindset a guy must have if he wants to start dating physically and emotionally attractive women.

This touches on another topic where guys complain about these attraction skills not being their natural self. The author says the majority of guys have no idea how to attract women because their natural self is bottled inside of fear, anxiety, and placing women on a pedestal. Once guys practice and internalize the information, they are then given the privilege to behave as their natural self. Being yourself is an earned privilege and not a right.

DeAngelo’s teachings come from his own experience, and years of studying experts. He has slashed through the loads of dating and psychology advice for men, most of which is useless or harmful, so you can be certain his guidance and tips work. (I have heard him describe his learning experience from the loads of information as walking through a jungle with a machete slashing through the crap that gets in the way of men being successful with women.)

Theory of Attraction and Dating Women

In traditional DeAngelo fashion, he begins Double Your Dating with theory. He briefly goes back a few thousand years to identify the psychological factors of women that remain unchanged to this day. There are inherit differences between the way women and men think, feel, and behave. By taking advantage of these differences – instead of letting them confuse you, like most guys who are unaware of gender differences in dating and attraction – you become more successful with women.

Most men new to attraction and the whole “pick-up scene” make the mistake of assuming women are only interested in handsome, tall, wealthy, and powerful men. These guys may also mistake women as wanting similar characteristics in men that guys want in women. DeAngelo teaches that women are naturally attracted to handsome, tall, wealthy, or powerful men. Though these characteristics instinctively trigger a woman’s natural feelings of attractiveness towards a guy, a man who develops his confidence, social skills, and attraction triggers can elicit more powerful sexual feelings from within her. What matters most is how a man makes a woman feel through his personality and communication. There are plenty of wealthy, tall, good looking men who get women’s attention, but cannot keep it because they disobey the principles in DeAngelo’s ebook.

Helping Men Transform

Two general principles I loved, which stood out from Double Your Dating, is the mindset you must have to become good at something and the need to constantly improve yourself. Though the ebook provides quick, short-term tips to be successful with women, the guys who make the commitment and effort to practice the advice get greater success with women than the guys after quick canned lines. Making a commitment to yourself with persistent effort is a sure way to get the most out of any goal you desire. The second principle of constantly improving yourself will do all guys a miracle in becoming more emotionally and physically attractive.

DeAngelo teaches guys many skills in the ebook that I recommend to people to improve their social skills and feelings about themselves. He shows you how to adjust your attitude, change negative beliefs to empowering beliefs, boost your self-esteem, become a man women know is sexually attractive, and general psychological betterment. The exercises he provides improves many areas of anyone’s life – they are not limited to helping guys become more successful with women.

Become a True Man

One point I think you will love most in the ebook are the strategies and exercises to overcome your fears of approaching women. Too many guys let their fear of approaching stop them from success with women. I felt DeAngelo was speaking directly to me with my past fears of going up to girl and getting rejected.

Another interesting point worth noting is “ass kissing” behavior, like buying a woman’s affection, is to be avoided at all times. In any situation where the motive behind complimenting is manipulative, you can expect a poor response. The basis of the ebook transforms these natural tendencies guys have into challenging behaviors. A guy in control of his life who can playfully tease women communicates sexually attractive qualities.

The personality styles that turn women on is, by itself, enough reason to check out the ebook. These personality styles go beyond personalities that women love – they are an entire life-changing mindset. One particular personality style of many I’ll share with you to demonstrate what I’m talking about is the “aggressive” personality. This personality is not about beating up women or being a jerk; it refers to pursuing a goal with passion, persistence, and determination. Women attract to men that work aggressively towards their passionate goals. It communicates energy, protection, security, and a future outlook, which ties in with the traits that instinctively attract women.

Quite possibly the greatest thing about Double Your Dating, which was added in the second edition, is the action exercises after every chapter. I cannot stress enough the need to practice any skill. Practicing is especially important in the dating world because fear unnecessarily prevents both men and women from dating success. A lot of people develop their fears from thinking too much. The action exercises act like little steps to get guys where they want to be in the dating world. These steps backed by a lot of real-world advice from the author means guys can go from not even being able to approach a girl, to having a great long-term relationship.

Overall, I was very pleased with the ebook. David DeAngelo’s style of writing was casual. I’ve observed his company and products for over three years. It is great to see the success they have given many thousands of men around the world in diverse cultures.

I know readers of the ebook that have more than doubled their dating – they have gone from never having a girlfriend to dating ten women a month. It’s crazy how much success some men now have with women after reading Double Your Dating. These men are now the selectee instead of the selected.

If you’re a guy wondering how you can be more successful with women, DeAngelo’s ebook shows you how. I believe all men, if they practice hard, can “mold with their hands” the kind of success with women they want. If only every man could read it, they would not experience years of frustration, loneliness, and fear that controls their lives.

Double Your Dating has my recommendations behind it! Sign up to David’s newsletter by clicking here. Once you sign up, you will be taken to a page where you can download his ebook Double Your Dating: What Every Man Should Know About How To Be Successful With Women (Second Edition). (If you’re already signed up to his newsletter, just enter a fake name and email to continue to the next step so you can get your copy of his ebook.)

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4. Review of Elite Social Control by Hamilton Miller
5. Review of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers