I had an interesting thought the other day: the game is a lot like the gym. The most obvious comparisons are the reasons for joining. You join a gym because you want to look good, feel good, and improve yourself. You get into the game because you want to look good (i.e. attractive to girls) and feel good (hanging out and having sex with cool hot girls) by improving your skills in this area of your life.

The next step is commitment. You commit to the gym by taking the time and initiative to go in and sign up. You do the same thing when you take the time and initiative to seek out the experts who can help your game and sign up for their newsletters. For me, this started with David DeAngelo whose Interviews with Dating Gurus led me to guys like Tyler Durden, David Shade, and Clifford. Part of this commitment also entails paying the gym an initiation fee and monthly dues—perhaps you even decide to buy a few personal training sessions. You do the same thing with regard to the game by purchasing ebooks, DVD’s, and boot camps. You also commit to a workout regimen of three to five days a week consisting of cardio, lifting, and stretching combined with a healthy diet, knowing that every aspect is an equally important part of your overall health. For example, if you focus on lifting weights but still eat a lot of junk food, you will gain strength but not definition. Likewise, if you spend a lot of time reading ebooks and watching DVD’s but rarely go out, you will still find it difficult to get dates.

The first step is the hardest. You might have to get up early to squeeze in a morning jog before work and those first several miles are difficult, complete with side stitches and burning lungs. You wake up the next morning with sore muscles, feeling slightly battered from your workout at the gym, but notice it feels good in spite of the pain. That first night out is difficult as well. The swirling nervousness in your stomach starts to reveal itself as you pull into the parking lot. You walk inside, immediately overwhelmed by all of the stimuli, and start to retreat inside your head wishing you had not taken that last bong rip. You talk to your wings to buy time because your approach anxiety feels like rigor mortis. Your nervousness affects your first couple of approaches and the harsh blow outs you suffer as a result sting your ego. You wake up the next morning recounting that pain, but realize you feel good for having pushed yourself beyond your comfort zone.

Continued growth requires you to hold yourself accountable to your commitment and actually go to the gym several days a week. Some days you don’t feel like going but you do it anyway by holding on to how good you are going to look in the near future, and ten minutes into your workout your lack of motivation is a thing of the past. Sometimes you come home from work exhausted from the long day, flop down on the couch with your take out order, and turn on the television. When your buddies call forty five minutes later to see if you still want to go out, it sounds about as appealing as sliding down a razor blade naked into a puddle of iodine…but you do it anyway and usually end up having a good time (it is important to warn against taking this concept to the extreme by depriving yourself of rest and relaxation in both instances).

When you are at the gym you start to observe others as they workout. You notice a guy who swings and uses his back when doing curls. Another guy fails to control the negative resistance of his weight. You realize that these guys “don’t get it,” but that doesn’t mean they’re not working out—they’re just not doing it as effectively as they could be. Likewise, there are guys in the community who don’t get it either; they are the social robots Style writes about in The Game and the lounge posts with advice that is just plain wrong. Acquiring the ability to discern which guys truly get it is a valuable skill. After all, who would you rather have as a personal trainer: someone who is healthy and fit or someone with a spare tire? A guy who has a lot of women in his life or the one who doesn’t? Once you learn to spot these individuals, you can ask them for advice on form and fundamentals. These people are almost always glad to help you out because they were once in your position.

Several months later, you’re in much better shape and well on your way to finally fitting into that Speedo at the bottom of your underwear drawer when a great career opportunity comes your way in the form of a big project that has you working twelve hour days, and your visits to the gym taper off. You come home at night and by the time you eat, do the dishes, and take a shower, it is well after midnight. You’re too tired to wake up and run in the morning. You finish the project a few weeks later then go on vacation. It takes a week or so to readjust after you return and you realize it’s been two months since you worked out last. You experience that “hurts so good” feeling again for the first couple of days but soon find yourself at the point where you left off. Your approach anxiety holds you in its firm grasp those first few nights as well but you’re “back in the saddle again” in no time at all.

This level of commitment (which leads to the easiest, fastest, and most enjoyable growth) almost always entails a change in lifestyle to help you stay on track given the aforementioned breaks that are bound to happen as part of the ebb and flow of life. Your monthly gym membership, the money you have spent on boot camps, and the time you have invested thus far can provide you with the incentive to stick with it, but the most effective way to stay focused is by making these changes habits and adopting them into your daily life. By committing to getting this part of your life handled you have, for the time being, committed to a change in lifestyle the same way you do when you decide to get into shape. The beauty of this entire concept is the connection these two areas share. Getting into shape can do nothing but help your game and, as Tyler Durden pointed out, becoming successful with women will have a positive impact on every aspect of your life—including working out—and there are hotties at the gym too!

I love this game.

--Waymore

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