A few years ago, when I still believed in dating, I went on date with a woman I'd managed to create initial attraction with. I didn't recognize the signals at the time, but I'd been acting in a naughty/funny way around her and she was attracted to me. Eventually I decided to ask her for her number (another mistake but she was so attracted it didn't matter), and she agreed to go out.

When she showed up at my door, she looked great, and I thought I was in for a good time (by dating standards). But, I relapsed into the "nice guy/wuss" and she didn't get the man she thought she was getting. Needless to say it ended with a peck on the cheek and unreturned phone calls. There was however, something very interesting that came out of that experience, something that taught me a valuable dating lesson, and that I was better off not seeing her.

You see, during the dinner conversation (yeah, I took her to dinner--I was pretty dumb back then) we got to talking about dating and different people we knew. How she described each person was incredibly revealing--they were either "out of her league" or she was "out of their league." She had a personal caste system and put herself squarely in the middle--the sign of a mediocre self image.

Since she was there with me, she obviously put me "in the same league as her," which, was, squarely in the middle. Now since I don't view the world in terms of "leagues" (I view it in terms of outcomes), if we'd gone out longer, our viewpoints would have collided. Viewing the world in terms of leagues is not a good way to go. People who think this way are concerned with what other people think of them, and how others perform relative to them instead of being concerned with their own personal goals and outcomes. They often become the best of the worst, letting other people's standards and beliefs control what they get out of life. This is not only true in dating, but in all sorts of aspects of life.

A lot of guys instinctively do this when it comes to dating, or as I teach what they should be doing, attracting women. They say, "She's out of my league," diminishing their own self image, instead of saying, "I know how to create attraction, perhaps I'll allow her to experience with me what she cannot with other men."

This is outcome oriented thinking, the result of a strong self image backed up by results from taking action with good information, i.e. competence. There's not even a thought of "leagues" or "levels" or any other such limiting factors. All there are is results, with the belief that results can be achieved simply by mastering a skill. Now, isn't that much more fun adn liberating than thinking in terms of dating, and this silly business about "leagues"?

This is the belief all successful people have, no matter what area they choose to succeed in, not just dating. If you find yourself thinking in terms of leagues or levels, you should replace that with results oriented thinking. You will immediately begin to get more results, and your self image will immediately strengthen because you don't give a flip what others think about you.