How to Turn OVER-OBSESSING in Early Dating Into an ADVANTAGE

From Elton and he said that I'll unintentionally sabotage myself because I'm nervous instead of just being calm and enjoying it. You have to firstly see the nerves as a symptom. The nerves are a symptom of having put this situation, this person on a pedestal and now I'm going to get incredibly nervous because I've told myself that it means something really significant if nothing comes of this. I've either lost someone amazing or I've just come away from it thinking I'm not good because they didn't like me and so if this doesn't go well then I'm going to go away feeling like I'm not worthy and I'm not good enough and that this is some kind of stamp on my value in dating and so we get nervous. If you can actually dilute that idea like we just said of how great this person is because they don't deserve to be put on this crazy pedestal and at the same time realize that if this person doesn't want what you have to offer that isn't a sign of your value. That doesn't have to have some great meaning about what your value or what your potential is in life. Before you carry on with the video I wanted to tell you about something really valuable for anyone who is struggling to move on from somebody right now. It's a free video training. This is going to help you build yourself back to a place of confidence whether it's having the confidence to reach back out to that person but in a powerful high value way or whether it's the confidence to move on from them once and for all. Check it out at moveonstrong.com. It's a great training and it's completely free. Back to the video and that there is someone else for whom you will be right so you don't need to have this feeling of panic of if this person doesn't like me it means something greater. No, if this person doesn't like you that's not your person. Or if this person only likes you because you gave a perfect 10 landing with the perfect date, the perfect line, the perfect first two weeks, is that really the person you want to be with? You always say the right relationship isn't brittle but it's kind of like the right first couple weeks isn't really brittle either. Not terribly brittle. And by the way, if you're on a date and you're nervous understand that that's not uncommon. That people who have zero nerves have often, you know, that's not often a desirable position to be in. To have zero nerves. Sometimes having zero nerves is a reflection of a kind of detachment or numbness. So, I don't know that the aspiration is to have absolutely no, you know, call them nerves, call it just as excitement. You can kind of choose different words for it at that level. But the person who's not in any way connected to that feeling is to some extent someone who's not really living. I find with any emotion of nerves or anxiety in life, you know, you're going to do a public talk, you're going to do a big pitch, you're about to go and pitch your book at an important agency or something and, oh my god, I hope they're going to like it. My reframe often is just curiosity. It's just looking at it and going, this is a fun situation. What an interesting situation I'm in. Like, I'm going to pitch to this person and they're going to say yes or no. What an interesting life experience this is. Or I'm going to give this speech on stage. What an interesting feeling this is that I'm going to have or an interesting experience. And you can do that with a person as well. If you target to, I'm going to learn something about them. I'm going to learn something about myself. I'm going to practice something that makes me a little uncomfortable. If you can go to a curious place in those moments, you actually relax a bit more because it's more about just, I'm going to see how this feels to stand on stage and talk about something to an audience. And that's all it is. Then you're in a different mindset than, oh my God, please like me. Please let this go well. Very good. I have another one which sounds similar, but I actually would like you guys to approach this one from a practical standpoint. So, somebody wrote in and said that their biggest fear was not making a good first impression and that she always feels inadequate. From a how to put your best foot forward in the first few dates and early dating. Can you give us some practical thoughts on how to do that? I actually think that the fear of having not made a good first impression or of saying the wrong thing, it's so intensely human. So, there are people who we would all look up to and say, oh my God, they're so wise, they're so established, they have so much status and yet they can still be in a room and say something and leave and go, that was really dumb. Why did I say that? We're all capable of doing that at any point. To me, what separates people is there are people who ruminate obsessively over that thing that they said and there are people who are proactive about looking at it and going, okay, what would I like to say differently next time or why do I not love that I said that? I remember I told a story recently and afterwards I just went, I don't like that story anymore. I remember thinking I'd told it like 100 times but afterwards I just… What was the story? Tell it one more time. No, it's done. But that was the point. I remember I told that story and I was like, I don't like that story anymore. It doesn't resonate with me. I think it's kind of stupid. I don't like it the way I come across and I just retired it. I was just like, oh, that's it. That was the last time I'm ever telling that story. I've outgrown it. That's useful. When you go home from a date and you know, I wouldn't say that again, don't ignore that. Use it because it's useful. That's how our impact improves is by paying attention to those things. Where our impact gets worse is if we obsessively ruminate over those things. That's looking backwards. I say it all the time because I think this is such an elegant phrase that encapsulates so much but you can wait or you can create. Waiting is rumination. Waiting is, I can't believe I said that. Oh my God. Creating is, well, how would I say it next time? What would I do differently? How do I want to show up to that relationship or that person the next time I see them? Or if that person never calls me again, then how is what I did there on that day going to inform every other day I go on for the rest of my life? By the way, you should make mistakes, pay many, many dividends. They should be so valuable. When you feel like you said something stupid or when you feel like you did something, you should make that work for you for the rest of your life. That mistake's going to be working hard for me. Then get ridiculous amounts of value out of it. If I make a public speaking mistake, then I want to earn dividends from that in every speech I do for the rest of my life. Then I can celebrate that mistake, which I do, by the way. I'd celebrate those things. I'm like, man, okay, maybe with that particular group I said that thing. It's annoying. I'm a bit annoyed that now I've created a bit of an impression with that group or whatever. But that's not the only group in the world. There are so many groups. There are so many new things I'm going to do. The number of people I'm going to meet in my life from this day forward is so much more important than that one last week. So, let me take what just happened in that group and make that work for me in every meeting I ever have. You can view dating the same way. Don't go into this mindset of, but that was the love of my life on that date and I ruined it. That's ridiculous. You went on a date with a person out of eight billion. You learned something about yourself on that date, a different way you want to come across next time. That gave you the gift of how you're going to be on every date for the rest of your life. And if you keep applying that mindset and you keep refining and keep improving, then every new wave of people that know you just find you more and more impressive as a human being. And by the way, you don't even have to write off the people that you've already made a mistake in front of because you'd be surprised at how malleable those impressions are too. That yes, you only get one chance to make a first impression, but the second impression or the third impression or the fifth impression can be immensely powerful and transform how someone sees you. So, you don't even have to write off the old situations. And also on the date, you might be making multiple impressions. So, even if you say a couple of things that are silly, it doesn't mean that you don't have 30 other chances to redeem yourself in the way that you listen, the way that you talk, the conversations you bring up, the way that, you know, your chemistry, the way that you look at them. It's such a complex, myriad thing, you know, attraction. And I think that just being stuck on, what if I say something silly or what if I do something bad is doing a disservice to how complex attraction is and how many chances you have at making a good impression. Which is another way of saying create. You've messed up, create more because you can out-create whatever silly little thing you said. But anxiety, what it does to us is it has us putting this one thing under a microscope and living there and just watching that thing. And it rids us of the ability to say, I've got a hundred more opportunities on this date to show how awesome I am. So true. Such a good point, Audrey, about it because it actually relates to unique parents as well. Because I always, I know this is massively individual, but I think every person can probably be a little bit self-aware about this, but like on a date, like default growing up, it was just so much, so easy for me to go into like sarcastic mode. Like that was my weapon in social situations. And then I found myself like doing that too often. And then I just, it's just a quick little switch where you're just like, oh, okay, well I've said this funny, sarcastic thing. Now I need to like default positivity, like just try to be positive. And you can do that within, with one anecdote, an hour into the day, and then suddenly you have a unique pairing. And now you're married, so it worked. It does work. Thanks for watching the video. I hope you enjoyed it. Before you go, head on over to moveonstrong.com where I give a free video training for anybody who is struggling to move on from someone in their life. Check it out at moveonstrong.com and I'll see you there.