I was watching this movie the other night with Wesley Snipes and Robert Dinero, called “The Fan.”
Robert Dinero was this crazy knife salesman (he actually drove around with this huge display case of knives in his car) and Snipes was a pro baseball player.
Dinero was obsessed, wormed his way into Snipe’s life, and havoc ensued.
But there was one conversation that was particularly insightful. Dinero and Snipes were talking, and Snipes (his character) was saying how he broke out of his slump.
He said that he just “stopped caring.”
Meaning he gave up focusing on trying too hard, or what the fans would think, or what all the radio hosts would say or the newspaper reports, or whomever.
Once he basically said, “Screw it,” his playing immediately improved.
Now, obviously, this is a movie, made up in the mind of screenwriters who likely never played any competitive sports. But you CAN see the wisdom of this.
If you’re focused too much on outcome, you’ll tend to micromanage every movement, thought and behavior, which will paradoxically make you much worse.
On the other hand, I’m sure you’ve had plenty of experiences where you just said “screw it,” and suddenly saw an improvement in performance.
Under the right set of conditions, being in “The Zone,” can be a beautiful thing. You aren’t focused or thinking about anything. You are just “being.”
Whether this is sports, music, playing video games, talking to girls, or whatever.
When you just let go of the outcome, not really care, and just enjoy the moment, wonderful things can happen.
Of course, there ARE some things you can do so that when you DO simply “let go,” you’ll perform a lot better.
After all, if you’re a musician, it’s a lot easier to ease into the flow if you’ve spent plenty of time doing drills on scales.
If you’re an athlete, it will be a lot easier to achieve peak flow performance if you’ve spent a lot of time practicing the same moves over and over.
Talking to girls is no different. It will be a lot easier to slip into the “flow” (and slip into her lol) when you’ve put in the proper language drills before hand.
That way, you’ll never be caught off guard, and you’ll always maintain conversational domination, just like she wants you to.
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