We’ve all seen it happen way too many times. You’re out with your friends enjoying a few beers when a group of girls walks in. The venue is perfect, the night feels good, and you know that if you and your friends were to walk up and start talking with these girls the night would be, well, magical.

You lean into your friends saying, “Guys, see those girls over there?”

“Yeah!”
“They’re so hot!”
“Wow!”

“Okay, we’re going to go approach. Let’s go.” You make a move to get up but your friends stay stuck in their seats, not moving. “Guys, come on,” you say.

“No man, they’re not that hot, let’s wait until…”

But the girls are hot, you know that and you know they know it. You push, but your friends won’t budge. They are not getting up and they never will.

Clearly there is a huge difference here.

What is that difference? You have confidence in yourself while your friends lack the same measure. Alex and I have been talking in back and forth e-mails, trying to figure out the best way to gain confidence. We’ve come upon two distinct things you’ll need: The ability to beat fear, and a game plan.

Alex has already discussed beating fear so we’ll talk about game plans today!

Love has been compared to war thousands of times in literature – for good reason. Love and war are both a fight; they take effort and struggle. Neither is easy. As with anything that takes effort, you need some kind of strategic plan. Imagine being in a war and not having any kind of strategy. How bad would that go? Actually, that’s not hard to see at all, look at what’s happening in Iraq.

Is that what you want to turn your love-life into?

Love is no different from war in the necessity of having a plan. Obviously you can’t (and wouldn’t want to) plan everything out in advance. That’s what turns you into a robot and takes the fun out of it. On the other hand, if you’re just starting out you’ll find a game plan to be a crucial element in helping you build confidence. If you’re a seasoned veteran of seduction you’ll know the truth in the line, “You have to know where you’re headed if you’re going to get there at all.”

The game plan is having some kind of an idea of what you’re going to do. That group of girls walks into the bar and you instantly know exactly what’s going to happen.

Your game plan consists of four things:

1. Knowing how the conversation will start: What are you going to say to hook her in.
2. Knowing where the conversation will go: Forward, I hope. In a direction that will make her like you and feel connected to you.
3. Knowing where the conversation will end: Are you chasing after a phone number? Instant date? E-mail (please no!)?
4. It’s good to have a series of contingency plans: When do you bail? This didn’t work so what do I do now, etc.

The more advanced you get, the less of a game plan you’ll need – you’ll have the confidence to do what you know will work. If you’re just starting out then it most definitely will not hurt to have things planned out in advance.

If you can combine your ability to face fear with a well developed game plan, there is nothing that’s going to stop you from getting your confidence to the level you want.

Note from Alex: Thanks Derek! Hope that it was of some use, guys. Derek has his own blog called Epic Nights, it contains some pretty cool articles, so you might want to check it out :-)

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First image by Keltic, second one by Chantrybee. Thanks!