/u/nowboarding wrote a good post which is, as of this posting, still stickied to the front page. In his post, he touches on how the transformation from Blue to Red Pill takes great time, effort, and patience. Becoming a man in the top 10% is largely considered one of the greatest feats you can achieve among us Redpillers. But it's hard to remain disciplined without at least some intermittent rewards to keep you motivated.

As men, one of the finest rewards we can receive is recognition for our efforts. Given that self-development is a slow process, people won't usually notice that you're doing anything differently, even though on the inside you may be undergoing great suffering and pain as you change your diet, your habits, your demeanour, and your approach to life and relationships. The fact that people can't see all the effort you're going to means you will rarely receive encouragement or praise.

What's worse: The Red Pill teaches us that men are only valued and praised for their achievements. But you're still a novice, an acolyte, an initiate. You're building equity, but you haven't yet had the time or experience to really achieve something worth praise. It's idiosyncratic. The time in your life when you most need encouragement is also the time in your life when you are least likely to get it.

Now, it's easy to say "fuck what other people think", but let's be real here: it's nice to hear praise. It feels good when someone takes notice of all the effort you're going through. Unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool psychopath with no capacity for empathy whatsoever, peer recognition is a powerful motivator. It renews your determination and keeps you on track in your self-development. It's a big boost. And for a feat as daunting as rebuilding an entire life, a certain amount of positive feedback is necessary in order to overcome the occasional setbacks, momentary defeats, and painstaking tedium.

So, how the hell do you deal with the loneliness and neglect that inevitably threatens to make you stray off the path to becoming the man you were always meant to be?

The answer is this: don't take the journey alone.

1) Share the company of men whose lives you wish to have, and learn by example.

Surround yourself with the kind of men you admire. Men with skill and talent. Men with determination and courage. Men with big social networks in fields/industries that you wish to pursue. Spend your free time in their company, and learn by watching, analyzing, and mimicking.

Where do you go to find men like these? Look in your place of work, your family, your church, your school, or local community groups. The internet is also a beautiful tool in this regard. There are thousands of forums and communities out there where guys get together to talk about the things they love. You must be proactive and reach out. Try to focus on subjects with a predominantly-male user base.

As an example, I joined up with a community of guys who like knives, flashlights, multi-tools, guns, bags, paintball/airsoft, motorcycles, men's jewelry, and other guy interests. It's a tightly-knit community populated by a lot of masculine men who take their gender roles, their work, and their hobbies very seriously. I spend a lot of leisure time hanging out with them, sharing stories and showing off new knives and toys.

And remember, just because you're not accomplished in something doesn't mean you can't be a student to a man who is. Many men take great pride in being able to teach, and if you prove to be both friendly and attentive they'll often appreciate the opportunity to be a mentor.

2) Spend time with friends who are also building themselves up.

The other thing you can do to keep yourself disciplined is to hang out with other Red Pill friends who are also in the process of rebuilding themselves. It works the same way as having a workout partner - and sometimes they literally will be a workout partner. By confronting the same challenge of self-development, you can hold each other accountable for your workouts, wing for each other when you go out, point out flaws in each others' approaches/body language, and monitor each others' progress.

Alternatively, if you don't have any friends who are Red Pill at present, you can begin rehabilitating those friends who you believe to have the most potential to awaken. Introduce them gradually. Begin by inviting them to be a workout partner, or to help you restore a car every Thursday afternoon - something with a set schedule and regular meetings. When you hang out, offer Red Pill insights whenever the subjects of women, dating, sex, or self-improvement come up. It is often said there is no better way to learn something than by teaching it, so take it as an opportunity to test your mastery of the basics and see if a novice can learn from you.

As your friend gains a foothold and accepts the Red Pill, he can become a peer and together you can continue to hold one another accountable for your progress.

3. Never stop approaching, even during your developmental years.

This is fucking key. You should never stop approaching women. You may feel tempted to use your self-perceived low SMV as an excuse to hold off on practicing your approaches. DON'T. This is a pussy-bitch rationalization around confronting your social anxiety.

Get out there and interact with women. Take every conversation with a woman as an opportunity to learn something. Flirt with every woman you talk with, even if you have no intention of bedding her - just do it for the practice. If AWALT, then all interactions with women can be templated into a working format from which you can repetitively gain insight and experience.

Remember, it's difficult to put a hard number to someone's SMV. And even so, people don't react to your SMV. They react to their perception of your SMV. This is where the philosophy of fake it til you make it comes into play.

As you go through the process of becoming the man you want to be, ask yourself: how does that man walk? How does that man talk? How does he approach women? How does he behave under pressure? What are some of his most basic, fundamental beliefs about sex, relationships, duty, responsibility, morality? Then, take your answers to these questions and begin LIVING them. Adopt them as your own. You will discover that as you adopt these beliefs and holdfast to them, they slowly become a part of you. As you wear a mask, it eventually becomes your real face, affecting your demeanour and your attitude. This fact is tragically true of Blue Pillers and explains why they're unmasculine in spite of their natural instincts...but it also explains how you can overcome the female agenda's plan for you, and become the man you were always meant to be.

The truth is, self-development only truly ends when you set foot in the grave. You'll always try and use the excuse that you're not good enough yet, that you still have progress to make before you'll be good enough to approach women. Stow that bullshit right now.

Most importantly of all, don't keep your eyes fixed on the horizon. It's a daunting thing to look at how far you still have to go. And no matter how good you get, there will always be ways for you to improve.

Don't look at how far you have left to go. Instead, look at how far you've come. That should be the meter stick of your progress. Keep your eyes closer to the present, and find ways to enjoy what you're doing right now. It will make the journey feel much less intimidating - and I guarantee you, one day you'll suddenly notice how different your life seems, how confident and comfortable you feel, how beautiful your girlfriends are, how many people seem to look up to you. You will feel fulfillment. REAL fulfillment.

And the rest of the world will be in awe of the man you are. The man you were always meant to be.

Sic parvis magna. Greatness from small beginnings.