Archives for July 2013

July 31, 2013

Dealing With a Personal Development Information Overload

Information overload is very common for people who are into personal development. It’s essentially when you’ve learned so much theory that your mind is overburdened and so it’s difficult to put it into practice.

What happens is that you consume a lot of conceptual information from books, articles, trainings and so on, and then instead of applying it, you get even more information; and more, and more. And when you finally decide to start applying it, you find out there is too much competing information in your head, to many concepts, ideas and voices telling you what to do.

You can recall everything and nothing at the same time, you don’t know where to begin with practicing, you feel confused and overwhelmed. So you become paralyzed and all that information goes to waste, because you don’t actually apply any of it to build real-life skills or attitudes.

info

I think that personal development information overload is very common because many of us, when we decide to improve an area of our life, we want to get all the information from the get go, to make sure he have any hypothetical scenario covered, and only then start using it.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t work very well. There needs to be a continuous balance between theory and practice in personal development, otherwise is gets disrupted. Considering this, here are my top 3 pieces of advice for dealing with a personal development information overload.

1. Take a Clean Break

Obviously, you’ll need to stop learning new concepts in order to prevent burdening your head with even more info. However, at first it’s also good to not try and jump into practice right away either. Instead, it’s best to take a short but clean break from both theory and practice.

You see, if you have too much information and you wanna start applying it, you’re like a person who ate an excessively big meal and wants to go jump in the swimming pool. With all that food in their stomach, it won’t be a pleasant experience. What they need is to wait a while and give time to some of that food to digest.

Similarly, you need to wait a while and give time to some of that excess information to go out. Your mind will quickly begin doing a cleaning job in your memory, dump some of the surplus info and keep and reorganize the info it sees as the most relevant.

This does indeed mean that you’ll lose some of the knowledge you acquired, but it’s much better this way. Because with less knowledge, your mind is more flexible, it can dig through the knowledge faster and it’s much easier to apply it.

2. Select Just a Few Ideas to Practice

When you start to practice the theory, don’t try to use it all at once. It’s too much. Your actions will be all over the place and you’ll make little progress in terms of building new habits.

The best route is to select only a few key ides and concentrate on applying them until you feel they’ve become a part of you and you now employ them naturally. If for example you want to be more outgoing socially, pick just 2-3 techniques and apply them. Then select a few more ideas and apply them, and so on.

This is the step-by-step approach to personal development, which is much more effective than trying to make one big jump and be done with it. The human mind works best if it focuses on a few simple tasks at a time. With this approach you’ll make the most progress in the long-run.

3. Set a Theory/Practice Ratio for the Future

In the future you’ll want to prevent information overload from happening again. This implies keeping a balance between how much theory you learn and how much you practice it.

The top way I know to achieve this is by setting a theory/practice ratio that you find convenient and sticking to it. For instance you can set a 1 to 5 hours ratio, which means that after 1 hour of conceptual studying, you need to spend 5 hours applying what you’ve learned. And you only allow yourself to go back to acquiring more info after the 5 hours of practice.

There is no universally perfect ratio; you’ll have to find one that works for you and your personal development goals. Just keep in mind that whatever ratio you pick, it’s key to have relatively short periods of learning theory followed by much longer periods of putting it into practice.

One of the perks of setting such ratios it that it forces you to be selective about what you study, since you’ve put a strict constraint on your studying time. This in turn means that you’ll be particularly picky about what you learn and you’ll be much more concerned with the quality of the information you get.

You’ll want to learn from the experts, you’ll be more willing to pay for information if it’s more valuable than free information, and the benefits will show in the results you’ll obtain consistently.

Your self-growth will be real and effective; you’ll see your behavior, your emotions and your life improve day by day, and you’ll enjoy every moment of it.

PS: I recently wrote 2 articles for DatingAdvice.com. One article is about making women notice you, the other is on how to make a girl laugh. Check them out.

Image courtesy of Will Lion

Filed Under: Personal Development, Success Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment
July 29, 2013

How to Keep a Conversation Going With a Girl

As a social confidence coach, I work regularly with guys who struggle with keeping conversations going. In particular, they have trouble prolonging discussions with members of the opposite sex, which is why how to keep a conversation going with a girl is a topic that I often address.

There is a lot of advice out there on how to talk to girls, and there are numerous approaches, from using memorized lines, to playing the nice guy, to bombarding her with questions.

I like to think that my approach differentiates itself from the majority because I don’t teach guys superficial gimmicks or routines, and I don’t encourage them to be fake. I help them understand female psychology and social dynamics, gain social confidence and build real social skills with women.

There are a few tried and tested ideas regarding how to keep a conversation going with a girl that truly work very well, and I constantly encourage my coaching clients to apply them. I’d like to share them with you, one by one.

Step 1: Stop Romanticizing Women

Almost every guy I know who has trouble keeping conversation going with girls has this strong inclination to romanticize women. They see women as flawless, especially beautiful ones, they think women in general are above them and hard to impress, and they believe they must always say something brilliant in conversation in order to keep a women’s interest.

This mindset is very far from reality, and it makes it hard for them to hold a conversation with girl. They don’t see anything they have to say as good enough, they pressure themselves to be witty with every comment they make, and thus they end up having little to say in a discussion.

This is why it’s imperative to stop romanticizing women. It will allow you to relax around women, be confident, and speak your mind without second guessing yourself all the time. And this is a very attractive behavior, which coincidentally also makes conversation feel effortless.

Of course, to stop romanticizing women is easier said than done. We’re talking about changing a thinking and behavioral habit, which requires particular psychological techniques. To dig into them, watch this instructional presentation in which I discuss this subject separately and more thoroughly.

Step 2: Find out Her Interests

Guys often have a hard time knowing what to talk about with a girl because they don’t know her interests. They may think: “I can talk about computers, because I’m interested in this subject; but will she be interested?”

girlOne way to solve this predicament is by trial and error. You begin talking about a certain topic that you think she might be interested in, and if she does indeed seem interested, you keep talking about it. If not, you move to another topic, and another, and another, seeking to find those that she can relate to. And this is a natural part of a regular conversation.

However, there is an even better way to deal with this predicament. Early in the conversation, you ask the girl a simple, straightforward question that elicits her interests. I usually like to ask something like: “So, what do you like to do?” or “Tell me: what are your interests?”

She will mention a few of them, and then I know what I can talk about that she’ll enjoy. I then identify among those topics the ones I enjoy as well, and I know these are directions I can confidently take the conversation in. This is how to keep a conversation going with a girl by finding common ground.

Step 3: Talk Some about Yourself

There is this popular idea that to keep a conversation going with a girl you just met, you have to ask her lots of questions, because everybody loves to talk about themselves, and not talk too much about yourself, because you’ll appear self-absorbed.

I don’t know who first came up with this idea, but in all seriousness I doubt they had many experiences talking to women. Because in practice, this idea rarely holds water.

You need to realize that when you’re talking with a girl you just met, to her, you are mostly a stranger. She knows almost nothing about you. And a girl isn’t gonna feel comfortable answering a long line of personal questions from a guy she knows almost nothing about. I can’t tell you how many girls have confessed this to me.

For this reason it’s important when you’re talking to a girl to combine asking her questions with talking about yourself. It is this mix of her talking, you talking, her talking some more, you talking some more, that makes the conversation move forward and helps both of you become comfortable with each other. And that’s exactly what you want.

Typically, you may hesitate to talk about yourself, and because you lack practice, you may not be very good at it either. But this is something that you can only overcome with practice. So try to be more talkative and talk more about yourself. With experience you’ll get better at it and it will get a lot easier as well.

Step 4: Manage Your Anxiety

Guys who want to learn how to keep a conversation going with a girl typically feel a lot of anxiety when talking to girls, or even just thinking about it. Their heart races, their mind often goes blank, and this naturally makes dialogue difficult.

Nearly every time, this anxiety is the real root of the problem. Not a lack of conversation skills; or at least, not as much. And if you wanna be able to make effortless conversation with a girl, you need to weed out the problem from its root.

In other words, you need to learn how to manage your anxiety around girls, so you can feel at ease talking to any girl. Then you’ll naturally be able to have conversations as long as you want.

Since this is an intricate topic, I address it separately and in more detail in this special video. I recommend you watch it right now, because in it you’ll learn some of the most powerful information in existence about eliminating conversation anxiety and building conversation confidence. So make sure you watch it.

I know talking to a girl may be difficult for you right now. But trust me, this can completely change. Yes, it will take some work. You have to learn to deal with your nervousness, and you need to create better conversation habits for yourself.

The good news is that there are quality resources and specialists ready to assist you on this journey. If you haven’t already, I invite you to join my free social confidence newsletter, and you’ll receive regular advice from me for improving your social confidence and social skills.

Your social life is in your hands. Make the best of it.

Image courtesy of Rares Dutu

Filed Under: Communication Skills, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments
July 16, 2013

How to Stop Being Needy

Do you often sabotage yourself by being needy? Whether this happens in job-related situations, around other people in general or around members of the opposite sex that you fancy, I want to let you know that you can learn how to stop being needy and solve this issue. Permanently.

Over the last several years, I’ve coached dozen of individuals who were needy and I helped them gain the self-confidence they desired. The fact of the matter is that being needy is a process, created in your mind by the way you think about yourself and others.

And you can reverse this process through proven psychological techniques, thus replacing neediness with sell-confidence. Here’s the gist of this procedure.

1. Build Trust in Your Strengths

First and foremost, you have to get in touch with you own strengths. Do some self-exploration and get to know your own strengths. Acknowledge them to yourself and become aware of their value in this world, for you or for others around you.

If you’re often needy, it’s almost certain that you don’t have a very good opinion of yourself, and that has a lot to do with seeing your flaws but not seeing your strengths. A big part of learning how to stop being needy is correcting this state.

The goal is for you to know our strengths better and trust them. Thus you’ll see yourself in a better light, which will make more things seem possible for you, which will automatically make you less desperate. There is a lot of power in seeing yourself in an overall positive way.

2. Think in Terms of Abundance

freeAlso common for people who are needy is a perception of shortage. “If I don’t get this job I will never find another one like it.” “If I don’t get this person to be with me, I will never find anyone like them.” This is how their routine thinking goes.

But this is never true. In reality, no matter how special an opportunity is, there are many other opportunities similar to it. That are many great jobs and great women/men out there, and this is something that you need to realize and internalize.

Put another way, in order to stop being needy and desperate, it’s essential for you to think in terms of abundance. To see this world as a world full of opportunities, in which when one door closes, another one opens. It is very much true. And this is a way of thinking that you can develop with practice.

But, this is not as straightforward a process as it may seem. There is an entire art and science to changing the way you think. To learn more about it, I recommend you watch this practical presentation right now, where I discuss it in more detail. It’s loaded with relevant confidence building advice for you.

3. Challenge Yourself

One of the amazing things about challenging yourself is that besides helping you be more confident, it also helps you stop being needy.

This makes a lot of sense. When you challenge yourself and you surpass these challenges (which one way or another you almost always do), you prove to yourself that you’re capable and you can rely on your won person.

This in turn builds the perception that you have many options in life, in dating, in your career, and so on. And that’s how to stop being needy in any of these areas.

Our regular tendency is to avoid challenge. Because challenges create struggle and sometimes generates anxiety. This tendency is especially true for people who are needy. So it’s crucial for you to correct this tendency and begin doing the very opposite.

Consistently challenge yourself. Push yourself out of your comfort zone, try new things, and take calculated risks. You’ll be surprised what you can achieve and how your image of yourself and of the world can change.

For more advice on how to stop being needy don’t forget to watch this video, and put into practice the ideas you’ve learned so far.

The truth is that you don’t have to be needy. It’s not a fixed personality trait. It’s a mere habit you’ve picked up over the years through some bad social conditioning. You can completely remove this conditioning and be the confident person you want to be. Many before you have managed to do so.

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Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Relationships Tagged With: , , , Leave a Comment
July 5, 2013

Does Social Confidence Improve By Itself Over Time?

Our typical emotional reactions to certain types of situations often change over time, without us deliberately trying to change them. This applies for social confidence as well, which is a motive that gets many people who are shy or socially anxious asking themselves: will my social confidence improve over time, if I just wait?

Of course, it’s comforting to think that it does. All you have to do is wait, do nothing, and eventually you’ll stop being shy and be more confident. But could this be true? Here is my answer, based on my 5+ years of experience as a confidence coach.

First of all, in my experience, there is no universal rule. When people who lack social confidence do not attempt to change this, there are several directions their social confidence can take on its own: sometimes it does indeed improve on its own, other times it gets worse, and other times it stays about the same.

The General Rule

Nevertheless, there is a general rule. There is a trend that you’ll see happening in about 80% or more of the cases. And this trend is that, unfortunately, unless you do something to improve your social confidence, it will gradually get worse over time, not better.

It’s not only my experience. Other coaches or psychologists who work with people with shyness or social anxiety have noticed this phenomenon; and various longitudinal studies of people with shyness or social anxiety point to the same conclusion.

up-downWhy is this? Here’s the explanation.

Over time, individuals who are at least moderately socially confident go out, meet people, have social interactions, and maintain an active social life.

Slowly but slowly, these experiences build their social skills and social intelligence. They get even better at understanding other people and relating to them, as well as understanding social dynamics and navigating them. This in time makes them even more confident.

Meanwhile, individuals who perceptibly lack social confidence avoid social events and they stay at home to play computer games or surf the net instead. Thus they get little social experience, so their social skills and social intelligence barely improve.

This widens the gap between their social competence and that of others around them. While others become more smooth and charismatic socially, learn how to be witty and read subtle social cues, they still don’t even know how to talk to people and hold a normal conversation.

And being aware of this widening gap, they feel even more nervous in social situations. The more they are left behind socially, the less socially confident they are. And that’s the sad truth.

The Biggest Exception

Out of all the exceptions, there is one big one though, which I would like to point out.

As I said, for some people, their social confidence does improve by itself over time. Most often, this is because they achieve success in some other area of their life and this improves their self-image.

For instance, maybe they achieve success in their professional life by constantly honing their job-related skills. They climb the career ladder, they get professional recognition or they make a lot of money.

This makes them feel better about themselves, and see themselves as more entitled to be liked by others. So they go into social settings with a newly discovered confidence, which makes it easier for them to have social interactions, which gets them more social experience, which gets them more social skills, which makes them even more confident, and a positive cycle ensues.

However, even this exception has its own big exception. Many times, even if a person does achieve great success in some other area of their life, it will not make them more socially confident at all.

Because as you already know if you’ve watched this instructional video I created, the correlation between your achievements in life and your social confidence is frequently very small. You can be the smartest, wealthiest and most capable person in the room, but your mind can still mess with you and make you feel like a loser.

This, along with the fact that the general rule is for social confidence to decrease over time if it’s already not very good, means that there is only one sensible thing to do if you lack social confidence: seek to do something about it.

The Really Good News

The best news is that you can take charge. Your confidence will likely go down over time if you do nothing. Maybe you’ve already experienced this. However, fortunately, you can do something to make your confidence go up like a rocket instead.

First of all, you can take action instead of waiting and just reading stuff. You need to start working deliberately at changing the way you see yourself, others and social situations, as well as the way you relate to others in social situations, in order to build your confidence.

Secondly, the technology you apply for building social confidence has to be effective. There is a lot of generic, repetitive and simplistic advice out there for overcoming social insecurities, and it just doesn’t work.

This is why I encourage you to get yourself a copy of my Conversation Confidence guide.

It’s a practical, proven transformational program, and it will teach you a highly effective, step-by-step formula for turning shyness and social anxiety into social confidence. Check it out here, and have a look at the testimonials here.

As you gain some social confidence and your social life begins to improve, it’s even easier to get additional social confidence and enhance your social life even more. Conversely, the more you wait and do nothing, the worse your social confidence gets and the harder it is to pull yourself out of the whole you’re in.

So, no matter how low your confidence level is right now, know you can completely upgrade it, and wait no more. It’s time to take action!

Image courtesy of jenny downing

Filed Under: Attitude, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 2 Comments