Post: #1

I didnt´t really know in which section to post this, hope it fits here...


I´ve got a substancial problem.
It´s game and self improvement related.
Often i get really hung up on small shit.
2 weeks ago i wrote an exam in college.
The topic was really interesting and i learned a good amount for the exam.
But the problem is that the grade I recived is bad, i didn´t fail, but i cant really get over it. I mean the grade is there and i cant change it.
So normally i should get over it and concentrate on the next task, but im not able to.
Same with game.
When I approach a woman and she rejects me, doenst matter how far I got, i sometimes get totaly hung up on it and cant focus on the next woman.
And when I´m able to approach the next one, the thought of failure is still in my head.
It´s not like fear, more like bad incident i cant forget.

So how to i handle this kind of dissapointment ?

Post: #2

I'm gonna quote a passage from one of my favorite books that tackles the same exact problem you're going through.

Albert Ellis Wrote:Take, for example, one of the most popular iBs, which I have named awfulizing or horribleizing: “It’s awful if I fail at this important task and it’s horrible if people reject me for failing.” This is a crazy idea because although it may be highly unfortunate for you to fail and very inconvenient for you to be rejected, when you call failure and rejection awful and horrible you imply that they are more than bad or 101 percent inconvenient—which, of course, they cannot be. They aren’t even 100 percent bad—because they could usually be worse. When you overgeneralize and go beyond reality in this way, you will make yourself feel panicked and depressed (instead of appropriately sorry and frustrated) if you fail and get rejected.

[..]

You start with a conscious or unconscious must and then you easily and “logically” derive your awfulizing from it. Thus, you start with “I absolutely must perform this task well!” Then you “reasonably” conclude, “And since I didn’t perform as well as I absolutely must, it’s awful, it’s more than inconvenient, it’s as bad as it possibly could be, it’s the end of the world!”

If you only stayed with your preference for doing well and never escalated it into a dire necessity, a must, would you awfulize about your poor performance? Hardly ever! I contend. For your preference statement would be, “I would like to perform this task well, but I don’t ever have to . So if I fail, too bad—but not awful!”

Your unnecessary worrying about rejection follows the same rationale as the above passage as well. You're most likely telling yourself, "I must get this girl's number - otherwise I'm a loser who can't get laid and that would be awful." You should instead tell yourself, "I'd really like [Notice it's a preference and not a demand, i.e. "I must get her number!"] to get that girl's number, but I absolutely don't have to. If she rejects me, so be it; but that doesn't prove I'm a loser who can't get laid or will always get rejected, for that would mean I won't ever get laid and will always get rejected, and I can't prove that."


Also check out Dusty's REBT thread (/thread-28873.html ).

Post: #3

One of the rationale of approaching 100 girls is to get rejected, and get used to it.
You are probably still not used to it.

Once you will be rejected many times - you will become numb to it. You (hopefully) will become outcome independent.

Good luck

Post: #4

Is it similar when you have small wins too? Are you unable to get the thought of your victory out of your head?

I'm guessing not -- and if so, the diagnosis is self-hatred. You believe that your defeats should be never forgiven, masocist style, in order to make the pain as hard and unrelenting on you as possible. Out of interest, would you say that your parents were very strict on you, and punishingly critical of your mistakes?

This is something you'll have to work on from a deep level, there are plenty of books on it, I think Cernovich has one called "Gorilla Mindset" that might be OK.

I vaguely recall young Phoenix being self-hating like this, everything was his fault and was unforgivable etc. But it's barely rememberable now. Part of it was throwing off incorrectly attributed blame. For instance, when a child is ridiculed for failing to understand something, or failing to do something well, or failing to like or dislike something, the child tends to blame himself. He thinks all of these things are because of him having faults, when in reality his failures in these things were within normal behaviour or probability. In these cases, the bad self feelings created in these conflicts need to be reattributed -- to the unreasonable or immoral elders. Even more insidious is blaming yourself when you were never equipped with the advice, knowledge, or training to succeed in the first place.

Beyond that, for things that you are to blame for, constant ongoing action-taking should neutralize those feelings. When you are a man who is constantly working to increase your chances of success, you can look upon your self as someone to respect -- which coupled with not incorrectly blaming yourself -- is the path to self-love.

Taking your basic example of rejection: why would you be expecting a high acceptance rate? Depending on how attractive you are, approaches on women who showed no prior interest have a success rate in the single digital percentages. If you're quite attractive, 1 in 10 approaches resulting in sex would be considered very good. Half of those will be near immediate rejections or ignores, the rest might drag it out a bit before deciding no, and one chick who's sexually available and likes you gives you the sweet yes.

So the fact that you're beating yourself up over this is like beating yourself up over failing to roll a six. It's irrational, and irrational self criticism is self-hate. Treat it as work. You're doing what you're supposed to, you're learning and improving your odds by self-improvement, your sporadic rewards will come, and for this behaviour you can respect yourself as a tenacious and well-moralled man.

Post: #5

Perspective, the old cliche of your glass being half empty or half full.
Be grateful for all the things you do have: 2 eyes,2 legs, 2 arms, a roof over your head, enough food to eat.
A bad grade is a problem only because you have the time, money and intelligence to go to university. Wouldn'tbe a problem if you were a dropout.
A dent on your car is only a problem because you own a car. Wouldn't have theis problem if you had to take public transportation.
And so on...
"I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes,until I met a man who had no feet." -- Indian/Persian proverb

Post: #6