Hey now... it's your boy Jeffy here.

If you've followed Real Social Dynamics for any length of time, you know that not only are we about getting guys the results they want with women FAST, but we also bring a heavy dose of overall self-improvement to the equation. The thing is, if you have excellence as your mindset, then whatever you want in your life, you're going to have that. And that's why we have that emphasis on self-actualization in general.

To that end, in recent years I've become somewhat of a fitness freak. Back in 2006, I realized that my "moobs" (a portmanteau of "man" and "boobs" FYI) were becoming so pendulous and hefty that they would jiggle like Santa's proverbial "bowl full of jelly" each time I mounted a set of stairs.



Enough was enough. I decided that it was high time that this sorry state of affairs was brought to an end. And so "The Summer of Ripped Abs" was born.

Over the course of that fateful summer, I read all I could about fitness and so forth, diligently applying what I learned day in and day out in the gym. The results were dramatic. In a matter of months, I had accomplished what I had set out to do: attain a midsection reminiscent of a tray of friggin' ice cubes. BOOM.

Fast forward to today. I'm still in the gym, plugging away, continually learning and improving my physique little by little. The thing is, these days the results are not as dramatic from day to day. In fact, sometimes it can seem like I'm doing all this work and not really making any progress whatsoever.

This is the kind of thing that can make a guy just quit completely. Where it's seemingly become a routine for the sake of routine, with no visible progress.

Don't worry though, I'm not about to revert to the Pillsbury Hoe-Boy on your ass.

That's because this whole time, I've been taking meticulous measurements and recording my progress week to week. Each Monday, not only do I weigh myself, but I also take my body fat percentage using a set of calipers, take a tape measure to various areas of my body, and take a photograph for posterity. This way, I know for SURE that I am actually making progress, even if that progress is small and incremental.

For example, in the last month, both my body weight and fat percentage have fluctuated slightly up and down, but because my records are so meticulous, I can see that regardless of this my lean body mass has been steadily increasing. At the same time, the amount of body fat I carry has steadily dropped, even if by only a fraction of a pound per week.

So let's get down to brass tacks. "How does this relate to getting laid, Jeff? I'm not here to listen to you talk about your abs bro."

Glad you asked. The point I'm stressing here is the importance of consistently recording your progress as you endeavor to learn a new skill set.

This year, I've traveled the globe giving free talks on my vaunted "Jeffy Freedom Tour." In every speech, I ask the audience to raise their hands if they are consistently writing field reports about their nights out.

In every city, I'm shocked at how few guys raise their hands.

I am absolutely convinced that one of the reasons that I got good at picking up women as quickly as I did was the fact that I would ALWAYS write up a report after a night out.

I went to university for English Literature. I'm an English Lit chode. So initially, when I got into this community and started doing this stuff, I saw it as an outlet for my writing. Each and every night, I'd come home and write up that report. The net effect? I basically have a diary outlining every single thing I did, in excruciating detail, for a period of three years. That's something like 2000 posts (I could write a book... and actually, I am. It's going to be SICK, so keep an eye out for that in the near future).

I want you to read this article and get INSPIRED to get off your ass and write up some reports of your own, because this can really take your game to the next level. Start this process and before you know it, you'll be hearing me shout, "YOU'RE THE MAN NOW DOGG!" in a Scottish accent.



First, when you write a field report, it "lets you see the movie twice," as my friend Ozzie says. Often times, we go out and the next day, we just have a hazy recollection. Either it was "a good night" or a "not so good night." When you actually sit down and take the time to reconstruct the events, however, a lot of those details spring back into sharp focus. "So then I was talking to her and... OH right that's when she said THIS, and I responded with THAT..."

Frequently, it's during this process that you'll have those epiphanies and all of a sudden, you know EXACTLY where you lost the set, and it's practically guaranteed that you'll never make that mistake again. Hindsight is 20/20... but only if you actually take the time to look back.

If you're just plugging along, oblivious, there's no way to really tell on a day-to-day basis if you're actually making progress, because your vision is myopic... you're too close to the action. Going back to the fitness example, if I were to simply look in the mirror and try to determine what progress I was making from that alone, I wouldn't see anything really. It'd be like trying to watch grass grow.

That's why keeping track of your progress is so important. By writing reports, you can actually look back and see how far you've come. Furthermore, you can actually see if the way you're currently doing things is actually having an effect! If it's not, then change your approach. There's that old Albert Einstein quote, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result." It's the man who's willing to crucify himself relentlessly who becomes successful.

Another great thing about writing field reports and posting them onto RSD Nation is that you will get feedback, from some of the top guys in the world. Now look: a lot of the time, the feedback and criticism you get from a public forum is a mixed bag. I acknowledge that. But you learn who to trust, and once you've got that dialed, that feedback is PURE GOLD. When I was coming up in the game, I'd post up everything, warts and all (ok bad STD pun), and just sit back, ready to take the criticism. A lot of times, it was stuff that I didn't want to hear, but at the end of the day, I was willing to accept the wisdom of guys who were more experienced than me, and I can't begin to tell you how valuable that was. It literally shaved years off of my learning curve.

But wait, there's more! Yet ANOTHER benefit of writing field reports is that it gives you "street cred" in the community. From time to time, you'll see some guy with a history of like five posts put up a thread entitled, "Looking for Wings in the LA Area... EXPERIENCED ONLY PLEASE."



Now, think about this. This is some random dude. I can see the "experienced" guys sitting at home, reading the forum and they come across this. "Oh my god!" he exclaims to his friend, "Look at this! This random dude wants to roll with us! YEAH WOOO HOOOO AWESOME!! Let's go man!"

Uhh... yeah, right.

When I started posting back in the day, it was my field reports that attracted wings to ME. I didn't have to seek them out. it just sort of happened. I developed a bit of a "cult following" so to speak, and when Tyler and Papa came through San Francisco on their first world tour, they said, "Okay, who is a big name in SF? This guy jlaix seems pretty wild, let's see what this guy is all about."

The rest, as they say, is history.

With all these benefits, it boggles my mind as to why EVERYBODY isn't writing field reports.

And do you know what the best part about it is?

IT'S TOTALLY FREE!

It costs you absolutely nothing to write a field report, except for the time it takes for you to actually put it together. But in my opinion, that cost is negligible when you weigh it against the myriad benefits.

"But Jeffy," you whine, "I'm just not a very good writer!"

Look dude, I'm not saying you have to be Shakespeare here. Even if your spelling is atrocious and your grammar sucks, it's IRRELEVANT (my favorite word in the English language). You're not competing for the Pulitzer Prize. At the end of the day, you're writing this stuff for YOU. And if you're NOT doing it at all, then I gotta tell you, you are doing yourself a serious disservice.

One of the toughest things as a writer is sitting down in front of that blank page and getting those first few words out. It's scary.

But you're not a punk, are you?

No, you're not.

So sit down, sack up, and start pumping out those field reports. And watch your game progress faster than you ever thought it would.

You can thank me later.

-jlaix