64 Toxic crowds, overwhelm, melancholy
No. 64 – 23 Feb 2024
Welcome to the 64th edition of the True Progress Newsletter, a weekly newsletter on beating overwhelm and anxiety for optimal performance.
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Article
Why crowds of people are poisonous for you when your discipline and self-restraint haven't yet been trained.
— Read more
Quote
Michel de Montaigne, on living fully:
"The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them… Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will."
Insight
I did what every other lawyer does:
Logging 60- to 80-hour workweeks
Being available 24/7
Working to exhaustion I got the job titles, sexy accolades, etc.
But it came with a heavy price of constant overwhelm that I still regret to this day...
Overworking didn't actually result in more output, instead it caused:
Brain fog = couldn't retain important things
Mistakes = risked my job and client wellbeing
Irritability = bad relationships with family
Poor sleep = no quality rest
I was headed straight to either losing my job or having a stroke. 1 thing I did that was a COMPLETE GAME-CHANGER:
Follow this mantra: work smarter, not harder
Understand that excessive hours = productivity declines
More work = more anxiety = less focus = more time wasted = doing more stupid meaningless work
Less work + more systems = more free time = more calm and confidence
Emotion Signpost
Neuroscience and brain-imaging research shows that properly naming an emotion is critical to managing and taming it.
It's key to decreasing fear and anxiety, becomes a pause for reflection, and increases understanding of yourself and others.
Here are 2 to explore:
Euphoria
Definition | A feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness.
Origin | Late 17th century (denoting well-being produced in a sick person by the use of drugs): modern Latin, from Greek, from euphoros ‘borne well, healthy’, from eu ‘well’ + pherein ‘to bear’.
Melancholy
Definition | A feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.
Origin | From Old French melancolie, via late Latin from Greek melankholia, from melas, melan-‘black’ + kholē ‘bile’, an excess of which was formerly believed to cause depression.
Question
When things don't go as planned, it's natural to be angry, demoralized, sad. But we can't linger in defeat for too long or we may never get back up.
What's your strategy when the tide turns against you? How swiftly can you rise, brush off the setbacks, and forge ahead? What can you do to start getting back up?
Till next week,
— Carlos & Stef
