Self-help guru Anthony Robbins often talks about how your choice of words can affect your mental state and mean the difference between succeeding and failing. Be especially conscious of the words you use when speaking about your problems, or other negative subjects. In fact, stop using the word “problem” altogether. The better word to use is challenge.

Poor phrasing: “Going to the gym is such a pain in the ass.”

Better phrasing: “Getting to the gym as often as I should is challenging.”

Poor phrasing: “I want to start my own business, but I don’t have the time, and it might fail, anyway.”

Better phrasing: “Getting my business off the ground is going to be challenging, but the upside will be huge.”

When you feel that you are facing a challenge, you’re more likely to rise to the occasion. Men, by nature, want to meet challenges and overcome them. If you play sports or have a competitive spirit, then you know exactly what I mean. Problems, however, we want to avoid or put off for as long as possible.

When it comes to approaching women, the words you use when talking to them is obviously important. But of equal importance is the self-talk that goes on in your head.

As you start talking to a girl, you could be telling yourself:

“God, I hope this girl doesn’t think I’m some dork, or blow me off…”

Or, you could be saying to yourself:

“This seems like a girl I might be interested in. Let’s see if she measures up to the standards I’m looking for.”

If things don’t go well, NEVER tell yourself or say to your friends that you got “rejected.” In the mind of a successful seducer, rejection from women does not exist. The way he sees it, there are only two possible reasons why his approach didn’t work out:

1) There is an area of his game that he needs to work on. He recognizes this weak point, and will improve it. (This might include an unusual situation that he hadn’t encountered before.) He sees it as a learning experience.

2) He knows he did everything right, but there were circumstances beyond his control that prevented him from succeeding. This would include the girl having a boyfriend and not wanting to engage in conversation with any other guy (no matter how cool or friendly he is), or maybe she’s in a hurry to get somewhere, or in a foul mood for whatever reason.

The pickup artist sees this as her loss, and he’s glad he didn’t waste any more time with a situation that wasn’t going to work to his favor. He moves on to the next.

A final note on word choice and self-talk: stop blaming women for the approaches that don’t work out. After getting blown out, most guys are quick to tell themselves that “she’s a bitch” or “she’s stuck-up.” But in 9 out of 10 situations, that girl would have been completely receptive if you’d made a better approach.

This is especially true at bars and nightclubs. The women there want to be seduced. Do you really think they spent two hours doing their hair and makeup, and perfecting their outfit, so that they could stand around and shoot guys down all night?

It seems this way to guys who don’t have game. Pickup artists know otherwise.