self-improvement Archives - Page 2 of 32

5 Ways To Become Someone Women Want To Date

September 2, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

I spend a lot of time working with men who want to get better at dating women. This ranges from guys who’re trying to recover from a bad break-up, guys who spend so much time in the Friend Zone that they could run for political office there and even men who’ve never so much as held hands with someone, never mind asked a woman out on a date. In all that time I’ve noticed something important:

The men who struggle the most with dating always — always — ask the wrong question. Every single time I’ve seen someone who says they can’t get a date, can’t talk to women or just have been cursed by the Universe to be Forever Alone, they inevitably compare themselves to other men. They treat dating like a competition; how can they be more desirable than their rivals? What can they do to keep other folks from “stealing” their girl? How, in pluperfect hell, can they get a date when Chad “20%” Thundercock is out there, rolling around and picking up 80% of the women like a weird, fleshy Cronenbergian version of Katamari Damacy?

🎶 Na naaa na na na na na nana na na na nana SQUISH 🎶

But that right there is the mistake. The issue that all of these guys have is that they’re so focused on their “competition” that they’ve missed the fundamental truth. Other guys aren’t your competition. Women aren’t comparing dudes in a spreadsheet and going with the guy who has the most points. You’re not in competition with other men; you’re in competition with a night at home, alone.

The question they need to ask isn’t “how can I be more attractive than other guys.” It’s “why would women want to date me, specifically?”

Because here’s the secret: being attractive to women isn’t about your face or your body. 90% of good looks is about presentation and hygiene. Being attractive is about how you make women feel when you’re around and the way they miss you when you’re gone. It’s being the person they can’t wait to hear from. The person they can relax around and rely on.

That doesn’t come from your face or abs. That comes from within.

Here are 5 things that you can do to become someone women want to date.

[Read more…]

This Is What Happened After 30 Days of Meditation

August 19, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

It’s not really an exaggeration to say that we’re all living through a nightmare. This is one of the most trying times that almost any of us have experienced in our lifetimes. The stress of living through a global pandemic, quarantining ourselves for basic safety, the economic collapse and social upheaval that so many countries are enduring… these are quite literally the times that try men and women’s souls.

And frankly, none of us are ok. Even if you’re in a fairly good place — you’re not in danger of being evicted or losing your house, your job is secure, you’re financially stable — the existential fear and stress of life right now is affecting all of us, often in ways we aren’t aware of.

We all have limited mental and emotional bandwidth under the best of circumstances, and the very real stress and fears caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is taking up most of it. Our thoughts and emotions are so much louder right now and so much closer to the surface that it can feel like we’re hanging on by a thread. We all feel trapped, isolated and helpless. It’s like a nightmare that we can’t wake up from, no matter how much we try.

I’m no exception. The pandemic threw gasoline on fires in my own life, ignited the walls I’d built up to keep emotional issues at bay and burned to cinders the remaining shreds of my ability to cope. My anxiety and depression — things I frequently struggled to keep under control — shot through the roof. Similarly, my sleep schedule, something I already struggled with, became a distant memory. I would get less than an hour of sleep at a time, only to be woken up at random intervals as my brain would start to scream: “There is a THING and it is BAD and you need to DO SOMETHING about it because it is BAD but you CAN’T because IT IS BAD and you don’t know WHAT to do…”

Since I was exhausted and more sleep-deprived than normal, my focus was gone. Concentration was a thing of the past. I was the emotional equivalent of The Goliath or some other roller-coaster: alternately miserable, angry or depressed without warning. Something was going to snap, if I didn’t do something about it first.

So I did.

I decided to pull the trigger on all the self-work I’d been putting off. First, I got in contact with a therapist and got tested for ADHD — something I’d always suspected I suffered from. Next, I began working on a program about recognizing and breaking patterns. And I decided to try meditation. To help ensure I stuck with it, I gave myself a challenge: I would meditate every day for 30 days. With discipline, patience and dedication, I would see if I could learn to simply quiet my brain. I would see if I could wrestle control back from the chaos of my own thoughts. Maybe I would discover some new level of awareness I never had before.

Now here I am, a little over 30 days later.

Here’s what I learned.

[Read more…]

Episode #148 — What Can Avatar: The Last Airbender Teach Us About Finding Remption?

August 12, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

It’s very easy to feel like you’re forever going to be defined by your worst decisions or your biggest mistakes. But while you can’t change your past, you can change your future. By examining one of the best redemption arcs in modern media, we can learn how Prince Zuko overcame trauma and earned his redemption… and find how we can learn to find our own in the process.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

How our response to trauma can shape our lives… and why it can transform us into different people
Why a desire for acceptance can turn people into villains
How to make a break with the past to build a new future
Why it’s so hard to make amends
Why you have to let go of your desire to be “right”

…and so much more

RELATED LINKS:

How Do You Find Redemption? — https://www.doctornerdlove.com/find-redemption/

How Toxic Masculinity Hurts Everyone — https://www.doctornerdlove.com/toxic-masculinity/

Recovering From Failure — https://www.doctornerdlove.com/recovering-from-failure/

Why It’s So Hard To Be A Good Man — https://www.doctornerdlove.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-be-a-good-man/

Solving The Incel Phenomenon — https://www.doctornerdlove.com/incel-phenomenon/

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Want more dating advice? Check out my books at www.www.doctornerdlove.com/books

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Help, My Girlfriends’ Guy Friends Make Me Jealous

July 24, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc,

So I have been in a long distance relationship with my girlfriend for close to two years now. And she has always had some male friends. In fact she has been hanging around these guys for years even before I met her. And she told they’re like brothers to her. I am aware that her mom knows them and is even friends with some of these guys parents. Before we met she use to hang out a lot with them but I told that I didn’t feel comfortable with that and she backed off. It would usually be every once in a while. Lately, especially because of the pandemic we’ve been talking on the phone a lot, close to all day sometimes (I don’t work everyday and she’s out of school at the moment).

These past few weeks they have starting hanging out more, I would say once or twice a week and it really bothers me. I’m currently in a different state for work and I know absolutely no one here and everything is closed to add to it. So phone conversations with my friends or her keep me busy. On the weekends I would try to hang out with some colleagues (that I would not usually go out with) to keep myself from thinking about her being with her friends. She’s a very direct type of girl and would tell you what she thinks right off the bat but I can’t seem to not think that she might be cheating or something especially when she goes home late even though she texts me whenever she’s out. I got so bad that I would get so angry when I come home from work and want to talk with her and she tells me she’s at their place, that I would not text her nor answer her calls until the next day.

I know there is an issue from my side and it starting to be poisonous for me but how should I address this situation?

Green Eyed Monster

[Read more…]

How To Unlearn What You Have Learned

July 13, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

One of the hardest things you can do — that anyone can do, really — is to try to unlearn something.

Especially something that you aren’t even aware that you’ve learned.

This sounds like an impossibility; how can you have learned something without being aware of having learned it? But in practice, it’s like the old David Foster Wallace talk This Is Water; you aren’t aware of it because we have been swimming in it for all of our lives.

And so it is with a host of toxic ideas about life, about manhood and masculinity, about women, even about how to live and behave. You have. I have. Everyone who lives in society has. It’s something that we have all been born into, something we’ve been so immersed in for so long that almost everyone is unaware of it and many folks push back when it’s pointed out to them.

Even people who become aware of all of those beliefs and lessons we’ve learned over time — myself most certainly included — can still buy into them. It’s not just a question of being aware of having learned these lessons. It’s about trying to unlearn them… and, in the process, replace them with the right ones.

But it’s a difficult process… and one that often leaves you frustrated, even angry at times. It’s one that we each have to go through, and if any of us do so with good faith, we have to do so without expecting a reward or even congratulations. And it requires looking at aspects of ourselves that we often aren’t comfortable with. Like Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back, we often have to come face to face with the fact that sometimes the thing we’re struggling with the most is ourselves.

But the fact that it’s not easy points to just how important it is to do it; for yourself and others. Like trying to turn the Titanic, the sooner you start, the more likely you are to avoid the iceberg.

So let’s talk about unlearning what you have learned.