Do you remember the most recent time you wanted to start a conversation with someone new but couldn’t get up the nerve? Put yourself back in your last social teeter-totter moment, and make two lists:

Cons (why I shouldn’t approach)
Pros (why I should)

For instances in which you didn’t end up talking to your person of interest, you’ll notice a trend: your cons outnumber your pros. Fight back by justifying—list extra reasons to go for it. Get nitty-gritty if you need to. Give big reasons, give little reasons—just give as many as you can.

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Imagine, for a moment. I get onto the hypothetical light rail for my morning commute. A shy-looking girl in her late twenties grabs the support handle next to mine. She shoots me a glance when she sidles up, and three more times between various stops. Whenever she does, the lump in my throat gets a little bigger. In the sad-ending version, I never talk to her and I get off at my station disappointed. I sit down later to jot down my pros and cons.

Cons:

I was nervous
I was in work mode, not flirting mode
Her stop could have come up right when I started talking to her, making the effort a waste

Pros:

She was cute
Notice the cons outnumber the pros three-to-one. If I dig just a little, I can come up with plenty of supportive reasons. Don’t add new cons—you want to encourage your gregariousness, not your inhibitions. Look at my revised list.

Cons:

I was nervous
I was in work mode, not flirting mode
Her stop could have come up right when I started talking to her, making the effort a waste

Pros:

She was cute
She kept looking my way
She smiled and hesitated before looking away the first time
I could use a date for Friday’s salsa dance
I noticed a copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra peeking out of her purse–she’s a smart girl
She wore a very unique, feminine perfume
Saying hi would make her feel good about herself, whatever the outcome

The new list took a good couple minutes to draw up, but the process gets easier the more you practice. Now the pros outweigh the cons by more than double. Get in the habit of throwing in extra motivational reasons when convincing yourself to approach. Don’t encourage your inhibitions—drown them in contrary reasoning. But most of all, get up and mingle, while the chance lasts!