Inner Game: Career and Girl, who comes first, I need help

Hi,

I know this might sound stupid, but who comes first? And how much do you allocate with each area? I am asking because there is something really drags me for a long while! Need your advice!

I also want to get rid of this inner weakness and start a new life, instead of acting like a zombie without knowing what I have to do. I want to be prepared for my bootcamp in NOV.

Basically, my real pain internally is.......

benofear,

If you're tying to figure out whether the pursuit of a career or the pursuit of a girl should come first in life, the short answer really is: it depends on your priorities.

Before I took an ABCs of Attraction bootcamp, I was unaware that conversational and romantic skills could actually be taught to me. I literally thought it was a matter of "you have it naturally" or "you don't." Thus, I focused all of my energy and free time on my career. I worked overtime. I took on extra assignments. I worked like a dog. In the end, the monetary compensation that I got was definitely not worth the effort. But I slaved away at work anyway, because that's the only thing that I knew how to do. And I was very, very, very lonely, and I was also very depressed. I lived in a nice apartment, but I was very depressed.

Then, after I completed the ABCs of Attraction bootcamp, I was at a point in life where 1) I had a good-paying job and 2) I had no life. So for me, my priorities changed at that point and I focused as much energy, time, and money as possible on changing (2). I went out and utilized the principles, lessons, and the right fundamental skills that I learned from the ABCs of Attraction bootcamp to meet girls. I put all career-related activities on the lowest priority possible, and I did just enough to sustain my career. Thus, my priorities were completely turned upside down, and meeting girls became the priority. This worked for me because, as I mentioned earlier, 1) I had a good-paying job.

But if you're in a situation where you are having trouble with your finances, then you're going to need to adjust the way you allocate your time and energy accordingly. In my mind, it makes no sense to focus the majority of your time and energy on trying to meet girls if you are having trouble stabilizing your career. You don't have to climb to the top of the corporate ladder, you just need to get it stabilized. You can then be free to adjust your priorities and either meet girls, or focus more time on getting that bonus and/or promotion, as you see fit.

But first things first- you have to take responsibility for your own life and decide on what your priorities are, based on your own situation. No one can tell you what those should be.

-William

Even if it means giving up sleep, you need to make that sacrafice.

I used to work 68 hour weeks and I still had time to sarge, there's simply no excuse.

I didn't have time to gym and build muscle but I had time to run half an hour a night on top of that and keep myself healthy.

There are plenty of books about "time management" available. Read some.

You'll progress much faster from testing what you learn from them, vs. asking us how to balance your life.

You know all of the things you're juggling. You know when unexpected changes happen. You know what you're lacking. And you know what you want the most in life. We don't. Therefore, you can answer your question with the most accuracy.

@Benofear:

William, as usual, summed things up really well. Here's my point of view.

Attracting, finding, and building a relationship with a girl is like building a skyscraper. Building your life, your career, and your own self development is like stabilizing the ground you're standing on. Once the ground is good, there are no cracks and it's clean, you don't have to continue working on the ground anymore, because that's just procrastinating when you could have already started working on researching, designing and building that skyscraper.

However, if the ground is a mess, like mine is, then you'll need to clear the ground first. Work on your basics, getting your life together, loving yourself, discovering yourself, spending time to find what you like first. Because otherwise if you don't, no matter how amazing the skyscraper is or the design or skill you have to build it with is, it will come crashing down because the ground cannot stand it, just like you cannot hold a girlfriend or support her if you're already a wreck.

It means you shouldn't have a serious commitment because the ground (your life) isn't ready to support that skyscraper (the relationship). However, that doesn't mean you have to sit around and do nothing while you work on the ground. You can do some basic research on physics architecture (read up on PUA material, watch some shows, etc), learn how to design the model (building your body and working on your looks and fashion), learning what types of skyscrapers you like (finding out about what your girls you like), and building simulated models (casual dating). This is what I'm doing right now. I admit, my life is a wreck and although I may look like I'm good, I actually have a lot of foundation and basics I need to clear first.

You decide. If you already have a stable career, have good time management, and/or are in full-time study and you can afford time to do extra and go after girls, then your ground is fine. Stop procrastinating and build that skyscraper already. If your life is a wreck and you don't even know what you want to do and you feel like you can't even support yourself let alone someone else and need to love yourself first, then for god's sake clear the ground first and strengthen it. Do not work on the ground forever, just make sure it's stable enough to hold that skyscraper in place. Not working on the ground enough leaves it fragile and your skyscraper will come crashing down no matter how good it is. Too much effort and you'll never have built a skyscraper in your entire life.

Remember, there's a good story for this about a martial arts thing. If you walk into a dojo and want to learn martial arts and you're a frail thing, they will make you clean and do chores to strengthen your body. It's ONLY to strengthen your body and make sure you have the basics down. Once your body is strong enough, you need to move onto martial arts. If you only clean and only do chores, sure you'll have the basic body and strength, but you will only know how to clean and do chores. You will never be a martial artist unless you actually learn the arts.

1. no, you do not.
2. yes, you do.

Regarding Benobear, I took the bootcamp a year ago during my final year of law school. Although I dedicated as much time as I could have to going out, the huge obstacles of final exams, employment search, and taking the bar took huge tolls on my progress. If it wasn't for these factors, my progress could have gone even faster, because every time I took 2-3 months off to focus exclusively on my budding career opportunities, I would feel rusty and would have to take additional time to go back to the level that I started with. However, I've never regretted doing so because they were crucial turning points in my future career, and if I screwed up on those areas, those mistakes would not be retractable. In contrast, I can meet girls whenever I want.

If you are young and just starting out with you career, you should allocate more time to your work rather than girls. This is especially so given that once you have established a solid professional foundation, you can begin to focus more energy into meeting girls. We men have a much longer shelf life in romantic relationships compared to girls. Also, the initial impression that you make on your employers will have a permanent effect on your future career. Personally, I find it extremely risky to prioritize girls over career at its beginning stage.

I am in the same situation as you right now, I had just found a job that may require me to work around 60 hours/week. However, I am going to do the best that I can at work on workdays and dedicate my time to meeting girls on the weekends. As I settle into my new job and become more knowledge and comfortable with my position, I will gradually shift more attention to the romantic aspect.

Oh gee, thanks for the morale boost and kind words. But yeah, I do need to work on basics and foundations, which I'm currently doing right now, if you've bothered to read any of my previous posts, thank you very much.

I think I should rephrase that, because you misunderstood what I meant. By "I may look like I'm good", I meant I may look like my life is good and easy (not pickup, which I admit I'm still horrible at, I'm a complete newbie at, and worse than the average of the average AFC. Yes I admit it), but my life's not easy. I look like I have it all cut out being in medical school with my future as a doctor and everything looking bright and optimistic and all that, and all and my life should theoretically be all peachy and cut out for me, but it's not because I have a ton of crap I need to deal with being on student loans and potentially facing over 120k worth of debt after I graduate on internship pay, I'm living for the first time on my own in a new, foreign country faced with a ton of stress and homesickness and loneliness, I'm trying to juggle between work and being the 1st year representative of my year and all the duty and responsibility that comes with it plus all the meetings, conventions, and seminars I have to attend and figure out. And I've had pressure, stress and anxiety all hitting me at once. I'm living on a tight budget and with 35 hours of class minimum a week (7 hours a day, Mon-Friday), borrowing heavily from relatives and being the only person in Adelaide, Australia from my family on my own without anyone I know, except my friends, whom I'm really thankful for and helping me out of this wreck I am in right now.

And on top of that, I'm still determined to go out and practice, because I know I can handle it, but as Minh's told me, with medical school, this may be my only hobby and extra-curricular activity I may handle - going out on weekends and talking to girls, which I genuinely enjoy. I'm just working on basics - going out there, talking to them and making them laugh. Get their numbers if I can push for it, no kiss closes or any fancy crap and don't expect anything. Just practice, learn, and have fun.

And I know I can handle it because I've been in worse situations, where I was pulled back into Taiwan by my parents without speaking an ounce of Chinese and ranked 2nd to last in high school, publically humiliated by the staff for the bottom 3 feeders to go up on stage and apologize in front of the student body of 2000 students for being a failure. And even then I managed to climb my way up through all the negativity from my teachers and my classmates and worked my way up slowly to being valedictorian and the 1st person in 10 years in my high school to make it to National Taiwan University. I've even achieved high honors in university and made it to top 3 in my class.

So I know my limits. And medical school is no exception, except this time I'm on my own and the only time I can hear from my parents is on skype or when I return home once or twice a year during semester break. I've handled worse and I have no language barriers this time and I'm very determined to make sure I can get through medical school.

You've been there before, as you mentioned you were in law school. So you should know what I'm talking about. Yes, getting my life together is my first priority. That's why I'm not going to aim for a serious commitment because I'll break if I take too much at once. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to go out there and talk to girls. Why shouldn't I? Medicine takes up a lot of time, but it's not taking up all of it and I do need some time to have fun and relieve stress and this is something I genuinely enjoy doing, but with medicine taking up so much time, this is probably the only thing I have time for.

I did not mean I'm good in terms of pickup or attraction, hell no - Minh already told me everything harsh and realistic about me, you don't need to remind me twice. I have a ton of basics I need to work on including trimming that extra 10-15 kg (ugh... hard diet and exercise, here I come) , going to sleep on time and getting 8-9 hours of sleep a day, except on weekends when I go out, working on my looks, loving myself, getting myself through medical school, coping with stress and I will probably need to step down as the year representative next year lol. And even after that which I'm working on right is to boost myself up to the level of even an AFC before I move up to improve myself.

I've got the balls. I can go up to a girl and not worry at all about a girl rejecting me or making a fool of myself. I don't give a shit. I don't have the skills to keep up with it because of the stupid Asian mindset and upbringing of my parents making me focus so much on career and I only had 2 girlfriends in the past and both of them shortlived, meaning I'm still virgin and I'm 23. If I don't start now, I'll never get started. After I graduate from medical school, there will be internship and residency. Then there will be me rising to be a registrar and consultant and working fulltime 9-5:00. I will never run out of excuses that I'm busy.

So I'm starting now. Even if it's only basics, these two are my top priority and with my time this limited, my only two priorities in life I can go for - career and meeting/talking to girls. But medicine comes first, and I'll only go after girls if I'm keeping up with my coursework, which I'm doing right now. The majority of the time and all of my time goes to medicine first. Girls and pickup will occupy any extra time I have leftover and will come SECOND.

Sorry for coming off as a bit defensive. I'm just dealing with a lot of shit right now in medical school and with exams coming up in 5 weeks and all. SEQUENTIAL STAGING. GAH *shudders*

I disagree with you Raigon, If I met you on the street without knowing you were a potential pick up artist I would definitely pick out that you have not got much going for yourself and at the rate you were going you'd have nothing but a degree/title and a job. Hardly epic since, I know of many people who earn average and also less than average and are happy and content with their lives. It was obvious that you had a lot of problems and personal issues inside.

I don't think anyone's right or wrong here =/ we all live our lives differently but one thing I do know is that in order for you to get better you need to up the amounts of sets you do and the hours you put into pick up just like anything else in life. Practice does not make your game perfect but it will definitely make you better.

One thing no one here has mentioned is having a social group of friends. If you have little time to spend and you spend it with dudes who are NOTgood with woman, surely you will NEVER be good with woman. I can GUARENTEE it. Friendship is something that needs to be nurtured, because emotions and time fades that bond you have with people and before you know it there will be nothing to talk about and nothing left in common. Nurturing friendship takes time, so does being part of or owning an entourage.

Make time to connect and bond with people, share experiences and have a laugh. And most of all don't hang out with chumps. Celebrities won't hang out with people who do not benefit them, same with many wealthy people. It sound's shallow but that's just the way it is, only chumps hang out with chumps. It's not only about career and pick up, make some fucking USEFUL friends. It's no suprise that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are best friends.

Luckily between me and many of my wingmen we don't have to verbally communicate much while we are gaming, we know the drill it's goes without saying. I don't have to teach them how to wing, I don't have to teach them how to extract and escalate. We'll do nods, hand signals and whisper into each other's ear when we have to. Sometime's double checking to see if we are on the same page and got the same idea of what we are supposed to do, all of these guys have never attended a boot camp. I had to sacrafice a lot of my high school friends in order to meet people like these guys. Me and my high school friend's don't talk anymore, we've grown apart.

But saying this, most of the people on these forums probably could not let go of their shit friends. Your all too stuck in your ways and afraid of starting something new.

So true. I'm taking a break from "pick up" and going to start building a circle of new friends. This way is so much more fulfilling and rewarding. Not to mention easier...

Yes I understand that.

Which is why I'm dedicating all the rest of my other time from medicine into doing sets. It may not look like it, but there ARE people who are amazing with girls in medical school. They're multi-talented people and honestly in a class of 120-150 people per class, there will bound to be some who are good with girls. Come on - not all medical students are nurses. Medical students are bipolar - we have the nerdy and hard working ones with their heads buried in books at all times, yes, but we also have the ones who are naturally cool, smart, athletic and simply good at everything they do regardless of whether they're born good with it or they earned it through effort and hard work. BUT with these people why would they want to hang out with me? Or let me rephrase that - how do I make it worth their time and give value so they WANT to hang out with me and not think it's a waste of time?

The hardest part, as you mentioned, is getting these people to hang out with you. That's the hard part and I'm still wondering how. You mentioned that normally you wouldn't hang out with someone like me. So if you won't, why would THEY? I mean, they're helping me out right now through my crisis at med school and my classmates are currently working on trying to get me a girlfriend and helping me out. But you're the ones who told me - winners only hang out with other winners. How do we work our way into their social circle if we don't have anything to contribute?

I guess I wanted to ask that with you back in Melbourne but I never got a chance to.

After the fiasco that happened where I disappeared off the charts in medical school due to anxiety and panic attacks and stress and I locked myself away from the outside world, all my classmates worked together to try to get me back to school and a few threatened to call the police if I refuse to leave my home.

They know that other my two strongest goals and motivations are: 1. Medicine 2. Girls.

And in medical school, at least in Australia, the good thing is we're elites and thus we have high standards and good morals. So even the cool people who normally don't hang out with us, if their classmate is looking like they're going to do something dangerous to themselves they will help them out in whatever ways they can.

Right now they're helping me because they don't want to see me destroy myself and do something stupid. And yes, they're taking me out clubbing, too. So it's an opportunity. And all of medical school is working their way into trying to get me a girlfriend and trying to get me motivated. They don't want to see me flunk out. Even worse - they don't want me to do something stupid where I may hurt myself or worse. I haven't reached the state where I thought of suicide yet, but I came pretty close. It's a stupid reason why I haven't thought of it, but I refuse to die before I can get the ideal girl who I can love.

Yes I'm that bad. Yes I'm in that much of a wreck. Probably even more so than you imagine. That's why catching up, building myself up and clearing my groundwork and foundation, and my schoolwork takes first dibs, and pickup and doing sets come next. BUT as I promised you Minh, all the rest of my time after I catch up will go to doing sets. And I try to do at least 20 sets a week at minimum (10 sets a night, and 2 nights a week, or 20 sets a night, one night a week).

I'm still writing FR's. So go ahead and read them to see my progress.