104 Build this emotional habit into your life if you want to handle more stress
No. 104 – 26 Jan 2025
Welcome to the 104th edition of the True Progress Newsletter, a weekly newsletter on enhancing clear thinking and upgrading resilience.
If you’d like to share this newsletter issue via text, social media, or email, just click here, then copy and paste the link from your web browser.
Insights
*
Success doesn't require more degrees or a higher IQ—it demands the ability to handle stress in this order: exposure, regulation, perspective.
Expose yourself by swimming in the deep end.
Regulate your thoughts and emotions.
Build perspective by appreciating what you did and what's newly possible.
**
Your perception must be stress-tested.
Your fantasy about what or who you thought you were will go out the window the second you find yourself on your back.
***
“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
— Seneca
Challenge
Thought observation habit
Train your mind to recognize and neutralize FOPO-driven thoughts.
Set a timer: Twice a day, for 5 minutes, sit quietly and observe your thoughts. Write down any fears or anxieties that arise, especially those tied to judgment or rejection.
Name the fear: Identify whether the thought stems from fear of failure, rejection, or humiliation.
Reframe: Write down a reason-based response to the thought, aligning with logic and self-awareness.
Act: The next time you face a situation tied to that fear, consciously practice acting in alignment with the reframe.
Systems
Daily philosophy reset
Fears and anxieties often stem from not knowing the difference between what's under your control and what's not. Our task is to live according only to what we can control. Everything else is external and not our task.
Acting in accordance with an appreciation for this difference focuses the mind on the present moment on present actions, and makes adversity more bearable by reducing it to brief instances in the grander scheme of life.
Set a recurring 2-minute reminder in your productivity app of choice to pause and reflect on this question:
“Am I focusing on what’s in my control?”
Book Recommendation
Philosophy as a Way of Life by Pierre Hadot
This book took a long time to read, not because of its length, but because it had so much logical truth to it that it needed careful reading. Philosophy is not some archaic discipline reserved for academics and intellectuals. If you know how to use it, it's a body of wisdom for improving your life, career, and inner peace. This book shows you how.
Till next week,
— Carlos & Stef
