Improving Our “Signals” and “Beings”

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Being able to converse with anyone is a great communication skill to possess. But too often starting a conversation is like going to war – and not just for girls talking to guys. Most guys actually experience more fear in starting a conversation than do girls. We want to experience the joy of a great conversation, but what lies ahead of us is an uphill fight as we battle fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and lack of belief – all things that cause us to avoid starting the conversation.

For girls and ladies – of any age – interested in starting a conversation with a guy they like, there are two primary steps you need to take. The first step involves overcoming your fears and other “inner game” problems, while the second step involves what you actually say. Even if you think your inner game is good, the fact that you are reading this article wanting to know how to start a conversation with a guy tells me you are lying to yourself.

Do you need to figure out what to say to your friends? No. Why is this? Sure, you know them and this means you can talk about a lot of things. But this proves my point that I want to make: you are able to talk to your friends because you do not feel vulnerable to them. You can talk to your friends because you are not concerned about their judgments of how they see you. This opens a floodgate of conversational topics that get suppressed when you are trying to start a conversation with a guy.

Contrast talking with your friends to talking with a guy you like. When you try to start a conversation with a guy, there are a million things you can talk about, but you do not talk about them because you feel vulnerable in being judged. There are literally millions of things you can talk about, but you reason that, “He’ll think I’m weird”, “That’s a silly topic”, and “I don’t like that”. On the other hand, you don’t use this reasoning with your friends that chokes your conversations until they die. This why it is important to sort out these inner game issues that prevent you from starting a conversation with the guy so that you can become a stronger woman that naturally attracts men.

Let’s say a girl comes across a guy at a shopping center that she wants to get to know. She tries her best to think of something to start the conversation, but her mind is blank. She has inner voices telling her negative things such as, “You can’t do this”, “He won’t even like you”, and “You’ll just make yourself look bad and embarrass yourself”. The lady has already lost her inner game. She is not going to start a conversation with a guy by thinking like this.

The truth of the matter is her mind isn’t really blank; it is the destructive pattern of thinking that short-circuits the brain to make her feel her mind is blank. When you are suffocating your mind with destructive thinking, you ruin any chance you have in starting a good conversation. Winning on the outside starts with winning on the inside. Before you win in the conversation by starting a good conversation with the guy, you need to get your inner game into shape. You shouldn’t even worry about learning what to say when you can’t even speak.

I am going to hone in on how girls can start a conversation with a guy by firstly looking more into your inner game, then we will look into techniques that you can use to start a conversation with a guy. Moreover, these are fundamental conversational rules that can be used for anyone in various situations – they are not limited to girls starting conversations with guys.

Reframing Your Mind

The first path that you need to hop on to improve your inner game is being self-aware. Be self-aware of your inner dialog, the language going on in your mind. I know it is easier said than done so I’m going to teach you one of the most powerful personal development techniques to empower your mind and fight the limiting thoughts.

Motivational speaker Wayne Dyer uses the phrase “no limit thinking” as a means of releasing yourself from self-limiting beliefs. William James, a 19th century psychologist, said:

“The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.”

You need to release yourself from these beliefs so you can confidently start, and maintain, a conversation with almost any guy. You need to remove the limits that you have placed on yourself by using a technique called “reframing”.

Reframing is not a difficult technique to use. All it involves is changing how you interpret the troubling situation. Your aim in reframing is to create thoughts congruent with your goals and repeatedly affirm these thoughts to yourself. The more positive thoughts you create, the more you will improve your confidence and adopt a “no limit thinking” approach.

The girl at the shopping center would use the reframing technique by repositioning her current negative thoughts to positive ones about having a great conversation with the guy. Below are some negative thoughts the girl in our example is trying to overcome and to the right of each limiting thought is a good reframe the girl could use:

Negative Thought	Positive Thought Using the Reframing Technique
“I’m nervous.”	“I’m nervous because I care about the situation.”
“I won’t start the conversation well.”	“I will start the conversation well as I can do with my other friends and other people.”
“I’m afraid.”	“I wasn’t afraid last week when talking to a new guy so I don’t have to be afraid now.”
“He is so amazing and too good for me.”	“He farts, burps, and itches himself like any other human.”
“He won’t like me.”	“I don’t care if he won’t like me because I’m the prize. He is the one losing.”
“I don’t have anything to talk about.”	“I have thousands of thoughts that can be used to start a conversation.”

Can you see how easy and powerful it is to overcome the limits you place on yourself? Reframing is truly an amazing technique. It may take a minute or two to come up with a positive interpretation of the situation, but with practice you’ll become faster and better at it. It can be used in almost any situation to boost your confidence, improve your happiness, and lead you to success.

Now that you’ve fought off your doubts, fears, anxieties, and uncertainties about having a conversation with the guy, you can now approach him and start a conversation. I have found that once people can better their inner game by using the reframing technique, the second part of this article – starting a conversation – naturally happens. People are able to start a conversation easily because they reframe the situation into a way that makes them feel more confident and able to talk about anything. Nonetheless, I will share effective techniques with you which you can use to start any conversation with a guy – or a conversation with anyone for that matter.

Situational Starter

To use the situational starter technique, all you do is notice what is going on in your surroundings. Preferably make it something the other person is aware of or would be aware of once you use it.

In the shopping scenario, the girl could use things like the place being busy or how hot the weather is… Wait, I here you say this technique sucks. These examples of the situational starter are very boring and probably would not be effective in the shopping scenario, but they can work when delivered by powerful nonverbal communication. Nonetheless, talking about the weather is really the simplest and worst use of the situational technique because it is very common.

I encourage you to be a little more creative in using the situational starter technique. To make better use of this technique, you need to use more in-depth situational influences for effective conversational starters. These involve discussions on more unusual things about the situation and rely on your creativity. Your conversations will be more fun once you follow this advice.

I’ll give you some examples of good situational starters the girl in our shopping example could use to start a conversation with a guy she likes. The girl could ask the guy how to locate a specific store or item. She could ask him where he got his hat because she would like to buy one for her brother (you can lie about it). Say the guy looks about 20 years-old, she could ask him for his opinion on whether her 20 year-old guy friend would like an item she thinks this new guy has an interest in. This last technique is more of an opinion opener, another good technique to start conversations, yet it still involves reading the situation.

The last thing you want to do is break the cardinal rule of conversations: being boring. Do not, and I repeat, do not be boring. You can avoid being boring by avoiding the usual topics, like the weather. Talk about passions, interests, conspiracies, and relationships. It is pretty simple to avoid boredom by talking about topics that have emotion! By talking about topics each of you are emotionally involved in, you create an emotional link that the two of you will remember.

Use the Momentum: Branches

Using the reframing technique will free your mind to start conversations, but it is reassuring to have techniques that you can rely on to start a conversation. Using the situational starter with creativity or an opinion opener, gives you all you need to start a conversation.

Once you have got the conversation started, you are over the biggest difficulty. The conversation gets easier with time. But you still need to keep the conversation going. Starting a conversation means nothing if it stops dead in its tracks. You’ve overcome your inner game issues, you’ve approached and started a conversation with him, but if you don’t keep the conversation going you’re in trouble. I’ll list some techniques and tips you can use to keep a conversation flowing nicely with a guy, but browse the conversation skills section for more great tips.

I know myself and other guys love to talk about themselves. It’s only natural to talk about yourself because it’s the easiest topic to talk about. You can harness and leverage this with the guy by asking good open-ended questions.

In the shopping scenario, say the girl started the conversation by asking the guy, “Excuse me. I’m after a basketball for my brother. I thought you’d know a bit about it and was wondering what advice you could give me?” The girl would listen attentively using positive body language and showing other forms of interest in what the guy is saying. If he doesn’t know much about basketballs, it doesn’t really matter as she could then keep the conversation going by asking him, “What things are you interested in then?” What matters is she has broken the ice and started a conversation.

She can increase her chances of keeping the conversation going by asking for his advice on an item she thinks would be of interest to him. Again, this is using the opinion technique and is very valuable in getting someone to talk to you. She can guess what he is interested in by looking at his clothes, his friends, what he is currently doing, or anything else that is noticeable. The girl can ask him for his advice on buying a basketball because he was wearing a basketball jersey. She can keep a conversation going by observing the guy and listening carefully.

Having asked for his advice and listened attentively, she can keep the conversation going by building onto what I call “branches” that grew from the conversation. Branches involve talking more in-depth about the topic, or even another topic, by listening carefully to what has been discussed. There are literally thousands of branches to a statement like, “I enjoy shopping with my friends.” Branches from this that you can talk about could be shopping experiences, stories related to shopping, and why you’re shopping to name a few of the many branches.

One example of branching the girl in our shopping example could use that continues from the guy’s reply to her question about basketballs is, “Thanks. You do know a lot about basketballs. How did you get all this knowledge?” She can build a conversation about the item and branch out into related topics that she thinks the guy is interested in depending on his energy when speaking on the topic.

If you do make a mistake and stuff up the conversation with him, don’t worry about it. Use the reframing technique by saying things to yourself like, “I stuffed up and am now smarter for next time” or “I don’t care. I’m the prize.” Failure is just another step towards your success of effortlessly starting conversations and keeping them going. With enough practice, you will be easily starting conversations with guys you like.

From this article you have improved your inner game, you know how to start a good conversation, and you know how to keep an exciting conversation going. All that’s left for you to do is put the techniques to use when you find yourself wanting to start a conversation with a guy!

Lastly, if you would like to learn more about how you can become a more confident, mature, attractive lady that naturally attracts men, there is one online resource I recommend you learn more about: Catch Him and Keep Him. “Catch Him and Keep Him” is an online series of newsletters, ebooks, and DVDs by Christian Carter that will help you become a better woman so you can find and keep “Mr Right”.

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I'm creator of a highly praised program called "Communication Secrets of Making People Like You". You can read about it here and order it here.