83 The secret to being a great anti-pessimist
No. 83 – 7 Jul 2024
Welcome to the 83rd edition of the True Progress Newsletter, a weekly newsletter on mastering fear and anxiety for optimal performance.
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INSIGHTS TO REFLECT ON
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How you explain bad things that happen to you can make a big difference in whether you stay optimistic or become pessimistic. If you believe your failures are permanent, affect every other area of your life, and are mainly your fault, you will feel helpless—permanence, pervasiveness, personalization.
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When you feel like anything you do will be futile, you adopt tunnel vision, lose perspective, and create a breeding ground for depression.
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"One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself."
— Lucille Ball
EMOTION TO MEET
Neuroscience and brain-imaging research shows that properly naming an emotion is critical to managing and taming it.
Here's 1 to explore:
Apathetic
Definition | Having or showing little or no interest, concern, or emotion.
Example | After failing repeatedly at the task, she felt apathetic and demotivated.
Origin | Borrowed from New Latin apathēticus, from a- A- entry 2 + pathēticus pathetic, after apathīa apathy.
CHALLENGE TO GROW
Think about a recent work failure or problem that you don't feel good about after reflecting on it.
Ask yourself the following three questions:
Is this failure something you truly believe to be permanent and will continue and last or is it temporary?
Example: 'I always flunk public speaking gigs' versus 'I didn't do so well today and need to learn how to improve for the next one'
Can you come up with specific explanations for the failure or do you tend to generalize?
Example: ‘I didn’t prepare as well as I should have for this specific public speaking event’ versus ‘I’m bad at public speaking’
Can you think of reasons for why the failure happened other than just blaming yourself?
Example: ‘I ran out of time to adequately prepare due to other pressing commitments’ versus ‘I’m just bad at public speaking’
⌾ Reply to this email and let us know how it went.
BOOK JUST READ
The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying About What People Think of You by Michael Gervais
Most of our fear comes from people's opinions. The first rule to beat it is to focus only on what you can control and forget about everything else that's not under your control.
What you can control: your thoughts, words, actions, and attitudes.
What's not under your control: other people's opinions, the past, the future, traffic, weather, other people's actions, other people's happiness, how other people feel.
Till next week,
— Carlos & Stef
