Run Game Practice

How to be confident with girls (and with new people)

Updated 5 min read

Being confident with girls, or with anyone new, is the feeling you get after you've done it enough times to know you'll be fine. Reading about it rarely produces any. Your brain trusts evidence, and evidence comes from reps.

Below is a four-week plan with counts for each week, what to log, and the drills coaches teach for the physical side.

What the research says about your fear

Three findings are worth knowing. None of them studied dating, but each shows people misjudging how social situations go, the kind of prediction your brain makes right before you walk over.

None of this feels true in the moment. It becomes believable when your own log disagrees with your prediction. That's what the plan below is for.

The four-week ladder

Todd Valentine, a former RSD instructor, builds beginners up with graded 10-second interactions: small talk, directions, asking an opinion, then a compliment plus introducing yourself. The ladder below follows the same idea and adds weekly counts.

Week Rep Target
1 Small talk with staff or people in line ("How's your day going?") 3 per day
2 Questions to strangers (directions, a recommendation, the time) 3 per day, plus 2 compliments in the week
3 One-minute conversations with anyone 5 for the week
4 Approach someone you're attracted to and talk for a few minutes 5 across two outings

Rules for moving up: finish the week's count, then ask yourself if it felt boring. If not, repeat the week. Nobody gets a prize for skipping rungs. Todd's bar for a beginner's first success is to physically walk up and say something. Anything past that is bonus.

Once you're at week 4, use how to start a conversation with a stranger for openers, and the 30-day approach anxiety plan if you want a day-by-day version.

Change what counts as success

If success means getting a number, you'll feel like you fail most of the time. Score the parts you control. After each conversation, give yourself a point for each:

  1. You started it.
  2. You spoke clearly and held eye contact.
  3. You asked at least one follow-up question and listened to the answer.
  4. If it ended in no, you left warmly.

Four points means a good rep, whatever the outcome. Jia Jiang's 100 days of rejection, which became a 2015 TEDxMtHood talk and the book Rejection Proof, followed a similar logic: he reported that repeated exposure made rejection less threatening, and that many nos turned out to be circumstantial.

Reframe the nerves

Brooks's 2014 study "Get excited" (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General) found that people who reappraised anxiety as excitement performed better at karaoke, public speaking and math. The practical version: before you walk over, tell yourself "I'm excited" instead of "calm down." The physical sensations are the same, and you're relabeling them.

Fix the body

Evidence that posture changes how you feel is mixed, but a short checklist keeps your body from adding to the nerves:

More in body language that reads as confident and your voice matters more than your words.

Keep a proof log

Memory keeps the awkward moments and drops the fine ones. After a month, you'll recall two cringe moments and forget twenty pleasant ones.

Log each rep right after. In Run Game, tap Success or Rejected. Then add a line in your notes: what you did, the points from the list above, and one thing you'd change. Every Sunday, count the totals. The number going up while your dread goes down is the evidence you're building.

Common mistakes and fixes

Mistake Fix
Jumping straight to the most attractive person in the room Stay on the ladder until the current rung is boring.
Waiting to feel ready Set a count and a time. Mystery's three-second rule says to approach within three seconds of spotting someone, before your head builds a case against it.
Playing a persona Say what's true. "I almost didn't come over, but I wanted to say hi" tends to land because it hides nothing.
Counting only numbers Use the four-point score.
Letting one rejection end the night Plan a second rep before you go out, and do it within ten minutes of the first.
Reading about it instead of doing it Cap reading at 20 percent of your practice time.

What to do next

  1. Today: Do three small-talk reps with staff or people in line. Log them.
  2. This week: Follow the week-1 or week-2 target above, depending on where you are.
  3. Before every outing: Run the body checklist: three exhales, one voice warm-up, slow walk.
  4. After every rep: Score it out of four.
  5. Sunday, ten minutes: Add up your reps, your points, and the times you hesitated (from your notes). Write one change for next week.
  6. Week 4: Plan two outings of 2 to 3 approaches each. See warming up before your first approach and how to handle rejection first.

Run Game holds the log: your streak, your totals, and the Stats page to check when your brain says nothing's changing.

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