Thanks for the post.

It's easy to acknowledge the truth of those principles intellectually, but it's much harder to actually act on them when the time comes. Personally, I started small and am working my way up slowly - a year ago, I couldn't even make eye contact with a girl for more than a split second, and now it's second nature. The trick is to keep practicing and progress at a speed you're comfortable with (though not so comfortable as for it to be stagnation obviously).