When it came to reconditioning myself away from the nice guy mentality, it took years, but it only took a moment for something to switch in my head.
It’s what they call an epiphany: When a great truth or insight is revealed to you and your mind changes with that perspective. Like Jules (Samuel L Jackson) from Pulp Fiction when he decides to give up the gangster life after nearly getting shot.
Or It could be when a father who constantly works, realises the importance of family when he misses out on a major milestone in his child’s life.
For me, it was realising the value of focussing on myself. We nice-guys are hardcore people pleasers. We truly believe by being self-sacrificing we will get recognition, love and our dick wet.
If we listen to this girl’s problems about how fuckboys screwing her over, she’ll see us for who we are and want to fuck our brains out. It’s a crazy, deceptive and spineless plan.
It sounds stupid now that I’ve typed that out, but honestly, I did that.
I hold my hands up and say I did it, but it wasn’t just once …or twice. Try three times! All 3 times friendzoned. All 3 times I was too scared to be honest with them and too scared to ask them out. All 3 times they were never going to let me smash.
So what do I mean by focusing on yourself?
I mean when I started to work out, lose weight and wear trendy clothes (which honestly started as an attempt to be more successful when it came to dating) it inadvertently made me like living like this even if I struck out on my dates.
I was getting more attention, I felt better in my own skin and my confidence seemed to peek with each date and interaction I had.
By being focused on me, for once in my life, I felt happy and I didn’t need a woman for that.
But Nik! I hear you cry! “That’s selfish! Spoken like a true single man! What about others? I have a wife, kids and family that need my help and support. I can’t just focus on myself. I’ll basically become those fuck boys and abusers I always hated!”
Now let’s slow it down.
Focussing on your needs and ignoring people who are dependent on you is not what I’m saying. I’m saying by building balance via boundaries and doing something that not only betters yourself but also stabilises, serves to benefit both you and your loved ones.
How about an analogy: If you own a car, never change the oil or tyres, never clean it, ignore the warning lights, never get an MOT and drive it till it breaks down; you’re not going to have that car for long.
But if you do the opposite and keep it well maintained, not only will it last longer, it’ll most likely be a more efficient and enjoyable ride. The car is not selfish because it needs some time and effort to keep it working; that’s life and you are exactly the same!
As you have gathered from being a nice-guy, we’re deadly afraid of exposing ourselves (metaphorically speaking). This means being able to be vulnerable and showing our true selves. In other words, being authentic!
For me and most likely yourself, when changing this nice-guy persona, we try to go in the opposite direction and put on this macho, chad-like; bordering on the arrogant facade to impress people.
This is not authenticity! Let me repeat: This is not authenticity!
By embracing who you are without shame, you can effectively be the best version of yourself. Being authentic and comfortable with who you are is true confidence!
Have you ever listened to someone speak about something with passion about a subject you didn’t give a fuck about? What did you think of that person? How did he come off?
Most likely you were drawn in because they spoke with so much conviction and didn’t care whether people thought it was lame or boring.
This is the attitude I want to instil in you.
I want you to shed the shame of you being you and embrace it. If you like stamp collecting and DnD, Fuck it! Own it!
Being a man nowadays is not growing a beard, getting tattoos, watching football, drinking beer and clubbing. It’s a mindset and not some dated stereotype.
So how does one become their authentic self?
We covered part of it, which was to focus on yourself.
By focussing on yourself, you raise your own value. This in turn opens up options and a mentality of abundance.
When you have self-respect, you don’t date crazies because you’re not there to fix them as a way to get them to love you; you now filter them.
When you have self-respect, you don’t desperately try to pair off with any bit of tail. When you have self-respect, you share who you are and if they don’t like it, you move on because you know your value and have put in the work to prove it.
SO WHAT KIND OF THINGS SHOULD WE FOCUS ON?
Read! Read! Read! – Now I don’t expect you to be consuming book after book, but we need knowledge. We need to reprogram ourselves.
Our experience and internal story from our upbringing have not been a masculine one and we need to learn more about male/female dynamics, relationships, psychology, dating, and understanding the source of our anxiety.
My personal favourites have to be:
“No More Mr Nice Guy” by Dr Robert Glover
“The Courage To Be Disliked” by Ichiro Kishimi
“Models” by Mark Manson
“Atomic Habits” by James Clear
“The Charisma Myth” by Olivia Fox Cabane
“Mastery” by Robert Greene
I don’t expect anyone to be a massive reader but it’s just a spark. By reading at least “No Mr Nice Guy” it’ll speak to you like nothing has before.
The accuracy with which it summed up my life was an unnerving but liberating experience and this will spur you on to read and do more.
“BUT I DON’T HAVE TIME TO READ!”
Well fuck me sideways, you have audiobooks, YouTube videos summarising it, and articles written about it and pretty much all are free!
We’re living in the “Information Age” so if you don’t read, there are plenty of other ways to get that knowledge into that noggin of yours.
RINSE AND REPEAT!
Now that we have some knowledge, we need to build a better default for our lives. Improvement in our value isn’t some one time only, ‘buy on Amazon’ and then we’re perfect ‘thing’. It’s every day.
It’s that small incremental, imperceptible steps we take even when we don’t want to. It’s the muscle that we keep building. It’s mastery of oneself.
I’m talking about good habits. By keeping consistent and accountable, we build a better life that stabilises and improves our mental and physical health. Our default effectively changes and thus we become who we sought to be.
If you are new to the group, you will see people post their weekly updates and the habits they are keeping. This is not a one-off thing for the time we have in the group. This is building the foundation for more.
So what are these habits?
There are many different ones we can keep, but the core is:
- Meditation
- Cold Showers
- Fitness
- No Porn
- Reading
- Journalling
I won’t go over each individual habit and the benefits, but I will leave you with some YouTube links to explain it in more depth!
Meditation – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw71zanwMnY
Cold Showers – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1QeJniVl2A
Keeping fit – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1QeJniVl2A
No Fap – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJpHUWKjiY
Reading – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqMozc4K4pg
Journalling – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVzGGJHIJiE
If you’re just starting out, keeping at least one is good enough. The goal is to not break it.
So there could be a moment when you don’t want to meditate for 10 minutes as you usually do. That’s fine. Life can get in the way or you’re too tired, but reduce it for that day. Do a minute. Do 30 seconds. Do 10 seconds. Just keep the chain going.
The mental willpower is bigger when you break it and try to get back on it as opposed to just doing it every day even at a reduced amount.
Finally, there is a lot more to getting rid of the nice guy and so I invite you to read NMMNG. Hopefully, these points are a push enough to take the plunge into being better, not for anyone but yourself!
So go smash it!
For accountability and to keep you growing as a masculine man and no longer the nice guy, check out the MASCULINE CHARISMA MASTERY men’s group.