I remember the days of me peacocking in my hat and cool stuff. When someone told me to ditch it and stop feeling as if I needed to rely on it, I was genuinely nervous. But you don't seem to do that so it shouldn't be a problem. Maybe you're just making excuses?

At our stage, approaching and escalating is easy; I'd go as far as saying whenever I get laid now, it all fits into place and feels simple. But our minds insist on making things hard for ourselves.

We seem to have the same motives to get instate, approach and escalate more. Why not create some goals to work towards?