54 Anxiety sources, purpose-based identity, and failure
No. 54 – 15 Dec 2023
Welcome to the 54th edition of the True Progress Newsletter, a weekly newsletter on beating fear and anxiety for optimal performance.
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Article
Where does our anxiety come from? Most of it has to do with other people's opinions. They create fear of humiliation and failure. Here are six science-backed ways to free oneself from this fear.
— Read more
Quote
Carl Jung, on the importance of knowing thyself:
“The world will ask you who are you, and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.”
Insight
Want to increase your stress tolerance?
Build values. Then goals. Then projects. Then tasks. In that order.
Clarity and breaking things down go a long way in stress tolerance.
Emotion Signpost
Neuroscience and brain-imaging research shows that properly naming an emotion is critical to managing and taming it.
It decreases fear and anxiety, becomes a pause for reflection, and increases understanding of yourself and others.
Here are 2 to explore:
Self-conscious
Definition | Feeling undue awareness of oneself, one's appearance, or one's actions.
Origin | From Latin conscius 'knowing with others or in oneself'.
Threatened
Definition | To feel vulnerable or at risk; endangered.
Origin | Old English thrēatnian 'urge or induce, especially by using threats'.
Question
We don’t know what we’re capable of and what could be until we try. There are two types of failure:
Never trying because of fear.
Trying, failing, and getting back up again.
If you fall under 1 and want to make the shift to 2, ask yourself, what's the worst that can happen?
Till next week,
— Carlos & Stef
