The reason that we cannot do it that way on our own is because we hold on for dear life to all the cravings and desires and we only fight the behavior.
So we crave and are addicted to the thought of the beautiful woman and only fight the "looking". That's one losing battle that Hashem does not want us to fight.
So how to do it right? Next time you see an alluring sight, don't fight it. Go through steps 1 through 3. And here's my suggestion of how to do it:
Just say these three things:
1) Hashem I will not fight, I will just surrender to You and do what You want me to do.
2) Hashem, as Dovid Hamelech said, "negdecho kol taavosi - to you are all my desires", I offer up and give away all of my desires and craving to You. You can have my desires, I do not want them and they are my korbon (sacrifice) to You. Please take them away from me now.
3) Hashem, You do not want us to fight the Yetzer Hara head on. I am going to surrender to do what you want me to do, and I will change my focus immediately from what is tempting me to you and your Torah. I will forget the temptation totally.
To help with this, I will say from memory, over and over.
"venishmartem mikol dovor ro - and you shall guard yourself from every bad thing".
And I will think of how Chazal tell us from that possuk not to think about thoughts that could chas vesholom bring to tumah (impurity, such as nocturnal emissions).
I will head for the most immediate learning opportunity, be it a beis medrash, Torah phone line such as kol Haloshon, a sefer on my phone or PDA, or a pocket sefer I carry with me.
But don't panic. And don't try to use the sefer or the Torah to fight it, rather just calmly work the steps in your mind and surrender, and do it Hashem's way.
If you cannot do this on your own, call your sponsor immediately. If that doesn't help, go to the soonest meeting.
Instead of retaining the lust and trying to give up our will to Hashem, we need to surrender the lust itself to Hashem!
As Boruch wrote to someone else:
An addict's strongest will is his lust, that's why he's addicted. And no matter what he says, he is not ready to give that up without a fight. If he says he will give up his will, he really only means that he will give up the acting out - but not his will.
What he really needs to do, is to be mevatel his rotzon to the rotzon Hashem (nulify his will to the will of G-d). That means giving up the lust itself, as well as all expectation of ever achieving his lust, to Hashem.