Notes from RSD SHIFT by Julien Blanc (Chapter 2)

RSD Julien Shift Chapter 3 is here >

CHAPTER 2: MINDSETS, MOTIVATION, BEING REALISTIC

TRANSCENDING YOUR IDENTITY.

That’s just not me. Everyone thinks that. Even if you get past your initial beliefs, there’s still that little voice that tells you that you have to go out, socialize, talk to all those people, putting yourself out, bringing energy. That’s not me. I am a chill introverted quiet guy. It would be incongruent for me to become this person who I am not. You think you are going to find a style of game which is more chilled.

This is about change. You have to change who you are. It’s not about remaining a loser. You have to force yourself to change.

You have to let go of your current identity. You have to give up completely the conception of who you are and where you stand right now. Who and what says that you are introverted or quiet? No one, it’s a story you told yourself years ago. You are a product of different environments you have been put in your past. If you had received positive feedback on everything you did, you would be more open. You have been a leaf blowing in the wind. From environment to environment. Now you are taking control of the wind. The environments are in your control, they aren’t random and you can put yourself proactively in different environments beneficial to you. Up until now you had no control. Now you can. You can control your actions or where you go. And this will reinforce the beliefs you have. The correct ones. You can now control all those factors that will shape you internally.

Stop identifying yourself as someone who can be categorized. You are not the chill guy. Don’t limit yourself like that.

Take a flexible and adaptive identity that evolves with time, just like water. Be water. Continuously change. Till you die.

Never expect your emotions to align with your new identity. You emotions are connected and attached to your current identity and they are meant to hold you in place. We are creatures of habit and we hate change, the unknown. You will come up with excuses from your emotions and your brain. Your emotions are not on your side when you want to change. This is the result of evolution. Back in the day the unknown could have meant death. That’s why you have fear. Unknown = mental energy required to understand it all. The new reality is more complex. Difficult to understand. And your brain is lazy. You have to do this. You have to let go.

If you keep doing what you have been doing, you will get what you have been getting. Try something new. DO this till the day you die.

Never expect to get your comfort back. You are stuck in a position with your emotions and you want to rise up to a better state, but your emotions will hold you back. You must keep acting and going against those emotions, thoughts, excuses, and with time and repetition your emotions will align with your new higher position. Then you can rise again. Till you die. This is learning game. On macro. On a micro level the same principle applies. If you don’t talk loudly, you have to apply yourself so you can talk loudly. Talk louder. When you will do that, it will feel weird because you are acting through different identities. With time and repetition it will align.

Be disgusted by comfort. The life where you relax, at ease with 0 stress does not exist. You won’t grow.

Discomfort is necessary for growth. Muscle building analogy. It hurts to grow. Comfort is dead. Disgusting. Discomfort keeps you alive. Sharp. Anti-fragile. Go out and seek out discomfort environments.

It’s a crime to eliminate volatility. In our society we are trying to reach a domestic life, where everything is comfortable. This applies on clothes. Always dress the same way. It’s comfortable. Hair as well. Friends. Daily routines. Know what to expect, no unpredictability. Thoughts. They are similar to your thoughts from yesterday. Don’t plan everything in your life. When you won’t be able to follow your plans, you will freak out. You won’t be accustomed to unpredictability. We have addicted ourselves to a high level of comfort. You are not meant to feel such strong emotions with a simple hair style change. Finding comfort with routines. You addict yourself to a high level of comfort. You have to lower the bar and realize you can survive without all the shit you do to get comfortable.

Get addicted to discomfort. GO all out. Fuck your comfort zone. Strip your bullshit. Let go of your barriers. All those little anchors you need to get comfortable, let them go. Start enjoying being in the unknown, without a plan. Don’t think which bar you will go to. Embrace the unknown. Don’t make the word simple of familiar with a plan or a map. Embrace uncertainty, vagueness. To learn game you will have to go against your emotions, go against your mind and make yourself uncomfortable every day. PUT YOURSELF IN THE FIRE OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

The unknown is attractive. If everything was planned, it would be boring, you wouldn’t feel alive.

Taking right action is doing what it requires to be done no matter what your emotions are telling you. Gun to the head mentality. What’s the right thing to do right now? You will know, deep down side. You know it and you will do it no matter what, regardless of emotions. Don’t do what makes you happy. If you think like that, you will never grow. Your emotions

think short term. DO you feel happy approaching that girl? No. Do you feel happy doing drugs? Yes. Do what’s right.

Aspiration over addiction. A lot of people live in the reaction of how they feel in the short term. They don’t have control over their emotions and where it leads them. Every action they take is based on their emotions. They just want to feel good. Think long term. Does this help you long term? Yes, then even if it doesn’t make you comfortable right now, you will do it. Fight the addiction to comfort. Wake your mind up and snap out of autopilot. It will be tough, just like death, but YOU HAVE TO DO IT. This is not easy. You are fucking changing who you are. This will be the hardest thing you will do in your life. Think about what you want to become long term. No instant gratification. Have a purpose and move in that direction. Don’t take the easy way out. Resist it. Value the long term goal over the instant gratification.

You are always moving in a certain direction. You meet a girl, 2 directions. Will you talk to her or will you take the easy way out. One will move you closer to your goal, one will move you further away. You don’t stay at the same level. If you take the easy way out, you will lose ground.

You are either going up or going down. If you are not busy learning, you are busy dying. Is it scary to talk to a girl? Yes it is. It’s also scary not to talk to her. You know you are going down, you can get caught in the spiracle going down and you are fucked. Mock your excuses and your emotions. Laugh at it. It will create space with your emotions and you won’t identify with them. Those emotions are not you. That voice is not you. They are chemical reactions and you are going to take action anyway. If you resist it, it’s worse. You won’t do it. You will be disappointed in yourself. You see a girl, you think you should talk to her and you don’t, opportunity missed.

This is a muscle you build. You will fuck up a lot. Be realistic. It will take time to build. The more you go against your emotions, the more you take action, the more you will build your tolerance and cultivate willpower. This way you also cultivate confidence. Instant gratification isn’t happiness. It’s a temporary high.

True happiness comes from internal fulfillment. You get it when you do what’s right. You know you are doing the right thing and you are moving towards your goal. Even though it’s hard as death.

STAYING MOTIVATED.

In order to achieve some success, you need motivation. This is tough, the hardest thing you will do in life and you need a burning desire to come on top. You can’t just want it, you must need this. You must feel compelled.

Stop dabbling around. Most people have no idea or what it feels like to commit to something and go all out. In your past you might have tried to pick up something, got a bit good then gave up. This is not the case. You must take it seriously. You must feel forced to do it. Or you die. This must not be fun. You aren’t doing this because it’s fun. You aren’t trying new things because it’s fun. The rejections which come out from the process are not worth the “fun” attitude. Most people give up. Most people can’t tolerate putting themselves in the fire over and over again. If this was easy, everyone would be doing it.

How motivated you are determines your level of success. You need to find a fire bigger than the bullshit. The tenacity to excel is the most important thing. To patiently tolerate the non-stop hard work.

You need to buy in that game works. That you can achieve it. That it’s worth doing. Surrender to everything that is said in this program. Don’t doubt anything.

Buying into the fact that this works. Everything is very simple. The more you do something, the better you become at it. A lot of guys take the information and go the right way. Some other guys get stuck where they make the same mistakes over and over again. This works. Check infield YouTube. If this didn’t work, it would be exposed.

Buying into the fact that you can achieve this. A lot of people believe they are doomed to failure. They don’t have faith they can do something like this. If you don’t think you are going to make it, it’s not going to happen. “I’m not going to make it, so why even try”. He knows he won’t stick to it, then he won’t achieve it so his mind will come with the excuse why even try. You shoot yourself in the foot before beginning

Trying something is always better than nothing. Compare it to read books. People read the first chapters. Why even start, they won’t finish it. What’s more beneficial? Reading the initial chapters of 100 books or not reading anything in your whole life because you won’t finish it. Even if you don’t achieve your ultimate goal, it’s better than staying where you are. There is no point of destination where you finish in pickup, you do this till you die. Anyone can achieve this just because they are guys.

Buying into the fact that this is something worth doing. Sit down and ask yourself why you want to learn game. Why put yourself through all the intense situations going through the grind to become better. How does this benefit you?

Figure out the why. If you know exactly why, the how will take care of itself. Write it down with details. Go beyond the girls, look at the bigger picture. This will bring you core confidence, you will learn social skills which will help you everywhere. You will learn willpower. IF you are in college, start thinking what’s the right thing to do? Writing the assignment. Go do it. You want to relax but you have to work. What’s the right thing to do? Focus on one thing, the most important thing and everything will fall into place. This is the case with game.

There are 3 levels of consciousness, lower, middle, higher. Categorize what you wrote in these 3.

-Start from the bottom, everyone has bad thoughts. I’m doing this to get validation from women, so I can feel cool and good at myself, to get back to some people, to show off. To feel powerful. Examples of low consciousness.

- Mid-level, I want to live in abundance, not scarcity. For a lot of guys their options are only their social circle. They have X girls and they better not fuck it up with them. They are the only chances. Choosing a girl with a natural chemistry. Because of scarcity, guys choose girls who aren’t a perfectly match. With game you can do this. I want to be more social, happier, develop personality, feel at ease, feel yourself. Most freak about the situations they find themselves in and they stifle.

- Higher level. I want to inspire everyone I interact with. Bring them to my level of positivity, I want to reach my full potential as a person, I want to become the best version of myself, to have an impact on the world. IF you do this, no matter where you are, you will be motivated to learn game.

Example, Julien on lower level wants to show people he’s the best, how good he is so he can sell. ON mid-level, bettering his skills as a teacher. Learning from teaching. Help people. On higher level, inspire the world. To make a meaningful change. Write down all the whys, the benefits. Compartmentalize them on different levels.

You really don’t have a choice in the matter. Now that you know you can control your actions and become a better person, if you don’t do it, you are fucked. You can rationalize it that it is not right for you but deep down you will know you could be better than what you are and all your life will be full of sadness and denial. You take the red pill. It’s too late to go back.

I proactively put myself in situations where I don’t have a choice. Where there are no alternatives. Once you realize you have to do it, once you realize there is no other way, you are going to do it regardless of your emotions or bullshit beliefs that hold you back. You put yourself in a situation, for example by telling people you will do something with an expiration date. Then you do it, no matter what, no matter how tired you feel. Local group of guys working on themselves. Go out with them. See them approach. Feel the pressure to do the same. You are part of it. You aren’t by yourself where you can rationalize it.

Use your different emotions as motivational fuel. Emotions like anger, stress, fear, frustration, embarrassment, boredom. Use them as motivation. Turn energy around. Anger, be mad at yourself. If you don’t take action for example. Don’t reinforce a victim mindset, build a fire instead. Add to the fury, if you don’t approach, simulate the pain, then again until it comes to a matter of how much pain you can endure. Scared, use the adrenaline to heighten your senses, your mind, your creativity. Jealousy, use it in a competitive way, feel the need to prove yourself, to you not to the people. Be on the offensive, enjoy the challenges. Use resentment, look at stuff that pisses you off, that is your motivation. Boredom is huge as well. Motivation is unique to you, you need to do some introspection. Find what works best for yourself.

2 parts to motivation. Igniting the fire, discussed till now. Keeping the fire burning. You must keep motivation burning at all costs, everything in the world is working against this fire.

Society is not on your side, society doesn’t promote going out bettering yourself as a person and reaching your potential. Society promotes stability and comfort. If everyone reached their highest potential, it would be chaos, not everyone can be the best. Society says fits in, fit in the puzzle, some people will be at the top and

some not, stay at you place, don’t state your opinion, sit down shut up, fit in. Since school. You will have to go against society. Learn to go against the grain. Stop doing what everyone is doing, start doing your own thing, and don’t be afraid of standing out. In caveman times standing out was risky, everyone was competing to be on top. So you had to stay where it was safe. Go against it.

Change your conditioning. Switch from social conditioning to “pick up” conditioning.

You are the average of the 5 people you hang out the most with. Condition yourself to game.

Be aware of what is influencing you the most. Be aware of who those 5 people are. Switch out the ones who aren’t helping you. Meet the guys who do this and hang out with themselves so you keep this reality going on. Watch videos. Everyday. Those virtual friends will become the people you hang out the most. This is your reality, where its encouraged to go out and take action, where its encouraged to put your personality on the line, be loud, talk to people, express yourself.

Your friends and family are not on your side. There’s a dynamic in these groups. There’s the main guy, alpha. There’s the Funny guy, number 2 guy and more and it all works. If you go out and work on yourself, trying to become number one, it will create chaos and your friends will try to hold you down, why are you fucking this up, this works, stay in your fucking place. You must go against that. They will feel threatened by your commitment to achieve this. When you improve yourself, you make their shortcomings shine. You do it, they could do it too, they don’t want to but they start feeling bad. So you are making them feel bad. So they will rationalize and put you down so they won’t feel bad and you can all suck together.

You are not on your side. Your addiction to comfort is the biggest motivation killer. We try to find comfort in everything. You make a bit of progress, with time, you’ll tell yourself you are doing good, good enough, you are trying to find comfort in your success. You take a little step and you consider it comfort.

The enemy of the best is the good. The better you become the harder it is to keep motivation. Fuck good enough. You are here to reach your full potential. Don’t be afraid of losing what you achieved, don’t try to ever going back to a life of comfort, live in discomfort.

Always be willing to move away from stuff that worked just fine to stuff that will work better. Be afraid if things are too easy. You will start to feel comfortable again, be scared. Abundance is harder to play with in terms of motivation. When you are at the top your motivation will drop. Without you knowing. Be scared when things are easy. Never settle, don’t accept yourself as a finished product. A lot of guys do some approaches, get some good reactions and then think they did enough for that night. They think they can relax. Or they don’t do anything all night, they can get a number and they rationalize it was worth it, even if they don’t take action all night. Go all out. Find your own ways of keeping the motivation alive. Find guys who are positive and outgoing. Find joy in new challenges.

Get addicted to progress. If are doing well, aim to do better, then better and more and more.

DON’T DO IT FOR THE VALIDATION.

You have to move away from the validation in the long run. You don’t want to fuel your ego with good reactions from women. To find happiness from good reactions. To show off, to make yourself look cool.

It’s unsustainable. If you base your motivation on external stimulus, on girl’s reaction, it’s always going to be out of your control, up to luck, and it’s too shaky. It’s fluctuating. You will get awesome reactions when things go well and you will fall when they don’t. Your nights are going to suck. You will get some bad reaction and you will lose motivation. You will plateau, nothing will get better, and nothing will get worse. It’s unsustainable because you get bored of the new reactions. If you are new, you may think a girl who tells you she likes you will make you feel great, motivated. Imagine it happening 10 times a day for 10 years. You will be numb to it.

It also creates a very needy type of vibe. Desperation and neediness is the worst. You will put her on a pedestal, you will have lower value to her and therefore no attraction will be created. People go to girls, wait for the reaction and if it is good, they feel good, if it’s not, they feel shit.

Your interaction become too much of a big deal. You want to be the lover. You want to be carefree, so she can be carefree as well. If you are nervous, it’s way too serious, it’s not carefree. Delete the list of girls you’ve been with. If your girl is to sleep with as many, go sleep with 2000 low quality. If you keep a list, you won’t enjoy the women you are with. You will have more fun writing her name down. If you can count your money, you are not a rich man. Go out one night and you can’t get phone numbers, no sex. That will help you focus on the process. Have fun, enjoy talking to them. Learn to have fun by yourself, you don’t need her, if you don’t get her, you are enough. You should be full filled alone and the girl is just the bonus. The interactions are going to be much better if you do this and you will get the good reaction because if you approach a woman with this mindset, if you really don’t want anything from her, 0 neediness at all, shell automatically want more from you than you want from her and that will cause her chasing and attraction. Guys try to seek completion and happiness with this. They think they will be happy if they sleep with women. Society always conditions us to feel incomplete. If they can get X girls to like them, they will feel complete. Getting all those girls is never going to complete you

No matter how much validation you get it’s never going to change who you are. They think if they get X girls, they will be able to love themselves. This doesn’t work. For you to get those women, you must get them off the pedestal of being the miracle cure.

You are enough from the start. She’s never going to complete you. You complete yourself with your actions, not her reactions. It’s your doing that changes you and makes you feel good. It’s the interaction that makes you feel good, not the sex and reactions. They are just a good meal in your life. You

won’t remember many of them. When you remember a situation, you remember the interaction and how you pushed yourself, not the sex and the result

Your purpose cannot be your woman. Your purpose is you.

Don’t do it for the girl, do it for you. Focus on yourself. Women will come with time. They respond to a man with spine, with drive, a clear direction with boundaries who makes them feel good because he feels good by pursuing that goal. They don’t respond to guys who are shaky because they pursue something with ups and downs, something external, like women. You are doing this for you.

This is about the actions that you take, not the reactions that you get. Focus on bettering yourself as a person, the results will come.

REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS.

Being realistic, in terms of where you are skill wise, what it takes and how long it will take. This shift is hard, but straight forward.

Being realistic in terms of where you are at. Think where you are at, skill wise. Drop your ego and be realistic. What are your strengths, weaknesses? Stop deluding yourself. Even if it hurts your ego, you suck. Now you have material to change.

Accept the truth and go from there. If you suck, admit you do. Loud. In front of the mirror. Many times. Use that as motivation. Fuck, I suck, let’s do something about it. If you start on square one, there are advantages to that. If you are down there, you have nothing to lose. Intermediate people have reputation they want to maintain. You have motivation to prove yourself because you are at the bottom. NO one walks in a gym for the first time ripped. This doesn’t define you as a person. You aren’t a worse person than someone who is more advanced. That’s ridiculous. Comparison between 2 and 5 years old kid. They had different journeys. You are just at a different point.

You have to have realistic expectations. You can avoid losing motivation by having low expectations. If you know you suck, anything that is better than completely sucking will be great. Even a small conversation might make you feel great. Anything that is better than sucking, you must give yourself props. When you taste a bit of success, you want more and more. And with this you gain confidence. Most guys have unrealistic high expectation. They will go out and one shot one kill. They think they will get the beautiful girls. Very fast they realize that’s not the case, they get negative, they lose their motivation and they give up. Basketball, if you never played it, you don’t expect to dunk like Jordan the first time by watching videos. They also compare themselves to people who are way ahead of themselves. Basketball, compare to Jordan. If you don’t dunk like him, you think you suck and feel disappointed. If you get a number, you should feel incredibly happy about it. Nowadays people have so high expectation they are disgusted by it because they aren’t where they think they should be. They also think the whole game is made by the dunks. The highlights. Be realistic, it doesn’t work like that. If you compare to higher people, you will never feel like you are there. You think you could always be higher. Don’t get psyched out either. Some people Instead of using the dunks as inspiration, they use it to get psyched out, thinking game is outside of their reality. They think they will never be like that, they will be overwhelmed,

and give up. Those are just flashes, they are meant to inspire you. Life is just a compilation of flashes. When you see advanced people in action, you think “I could do that, it’s nothing special”. And that nothing special leads to the dunks. You get to do the dunks by practicing like a motherfucker, fucking up a lot and doing the boring stuff countless times.

Being realistic of what it takes. You have to set the realistic goals. People set their goals way too fucking high and they make it unsustainable. They burn themselves out. Small chunk your goals.

The challenge and your ability have to be matched. The challenge has to be adjusted to your level of experience for you to be in a positive state. Gym comparison, do you go to the heaviest weight when you enter?

Establish first goals and end goals. First goals are simple goals, very linear and achievable. They are within your skills. Saying hi to a girl for example. Take her out on a date, have longer conversations.

You don’t have to do it all at once. Don’t get stuck on the small things however. Guys want good reaction and they get stuck on them. Focus on the first goal but that’s just a stepping stone to your end goal, which should be high enough to make a change in yourself on a deep level. Take it one step at your time and stay focused. Forget about the big picture, focus on the small little steps. Focus on each step, not the whole process.

Make your goals as simple clear and precise as possible. Complexity is the enemy of execution. You will rationalize it’s too much, it’s not worth it, etc. When you write them down, you have to be precise. Write down your first goals and your end goals. For example getting a good reaction. First goals will be approaching, then next and next. When you get there, establish a new goal and start getting there with little first goals.

Be realistic in terms of how long it’s going to take. Quicker than you deserve but longer than you’d like. Define good. Never stop and accept yourself as a finished product. You are in this for life, you can always be better. In each part of life, of game. You can always improve. You are never done, there is no comfort. It’s the journey, it’s not the destination. It’s not you becoming good, it’s moving in that direction. There is no amount of time needed. Or amount of opens, approaches etc. We tell ourselves if we got those girls, if we made that money, we would be happy. It’s a fucking lie we tell ourselves. If you look back at your life now, you did get some things you thought would make you happy. Look at where you are now. Are you happy? To get girls, you have to devalue it and take it off the pedestal or you will come off as needy and even then it won’t make you happy. It’s the doing that make you happy. The internal rewards, not the external. You pick up to pick up, not to get the girls. This is a necessary mental shift. This shit is going to take years. Don’t freak out. You are in this for life. People have an unrealistic view of success. Changing yourself will take time. If you think it’s going to be fast, you will be disappointed.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. Accept it. You are not above the process. You are not an exception, a snowflake who will get good fast.

To get what you want you have to deserve what you want. To get beautiful women you have to deserve them. If someone else deserves it more than you, they should get it. If you go out and there is someone better for your girl, she should go with that guy. You get the girl not with techniques, you must become the best option. Attraction will be automatic. This happens when you feel attracted to a girl and you don’t get her and when you don’t feel attracted, you get her. When you deserve her, you can relax and you will get her. It will be natural.

People always want things easy. Magic pill mentality. Society gives you the magic pill. Don’t worry about going out and cultivating your personality or enduring experiences, here’s the quick fix. We are conditioned by that. Human beings are always looking for shortcuts. For the easy way to success. They want people to do it for them. They want to receive, be safe and not put in the work.

Surrender to hard work. Don’t run away from it. Embrace it. Don’t conserve energy. You maximize the input by maximizing the output. The more work you put into it the more you will get out of it. Make an agreement to yourself to never cut any corners and never make any excuse. There are no shortcuts to this. Do it anyway, you want a solid foundation that will last instead of getting good fast and having a weak foundation that will fall. What comes fast, leaves fast. Practice and patience is the only way and you need to get addicted to it. You are in no rush, you aren’t going anywhere. You will not run out of women. Why the rush anyway? Where do you want to get at? There is nothing next, embrace it. Your results are not going to be shit for years until you get something, you will get results all the way through, the more you do this the more consistent the results will be. If you do this, you might get girls during the process, it’s not a fixed X years wait. The potential of having value in the future is equal to value in the present. If you have a drive and you have potential, the girl will feel attracted and will sleep with you anyway.