I spent years in denial.

I had severe OCD and my anxious thoughts were out of control.

I had thoughts of strangers hating me in broad daylight and my family dying if I don't follow my stupid lizard brain.

Racing heart, shallow breathing and irrational thoughts popping out left and right.

My emotional brain would hijack my logical mind with irrational thoughts like "If I don't do this then something bad will happen".

This experience is common to most people.

You might deny or reject this idea but —you know how stupid your brain can become sometimes.

Thinking the world hates you because one friend said something bad to you or a colleague being cold so you think everyone in your work now hates you.

Denial happens everywhere. You pretend everything is fine while you get eaten inside .

Numbing down with distractions to avoid feeling fear.

So anxious you can't move forward because your mental health is suffering, gravitating the intensity with internal rejection.

Every time you reject the negative emotions, overwork yourself or keep pretending they're not there —you make anxieties grip stronger.

Your life becomes miserable because the emotional brain is in charge instead of the logical mind.

Leaving you paralyzed and too weak to be assertive.

I was convinced there was no way out until I decided to face my fears, accept all my pain is real and practice gratitude.

That shift saved me from becoming miserable. I stopped existing and started living.

If you are going through something similar, read the rest of this letter.

I'll tell you the lessons I learned - how to accept fear, act despite it and build emotional toughness.

11 Lessons I learned from irrational fear: Anxiety and OCD.

1) The mind loves to create delusional problems

Your brain is the greatest liar.

Fear loves it when you stay in your comfort zone.

You thinking people are out there to get you or k*ll you or hate you is stupid.

The lizard brain is addicted to negativity.

It craves problems and situations that put you in danger. Not for thrill but to feel miserable.

Because the unknown is dangerous and full of traps.

Your brain loves to stay in security.

It hates to be uncomfortable. It seeks refuge and protection.

You thinking "what if people judged me if I do that?", "what if they get angry about it"? is all stupid.

If it hasn't happened then it's not real.

If your mind thinks your family is going to do die because you didn't do your chores is also stupid.

This analysis paralysis is what keeps people average. You can be incredibly intelligent but fearful and you won't achieve success.

A shadowy existence of the person you could've become.

You are merely a vessel of the whole. A fraction of the man you could've become.

For you have become your greatest enemy.

Do not let your mind hold you back. Act against it.

2) Denial is a bad strategy.

Emotions work when you let it flow.

But when you hold it in one place and overload it —you will fail to maintain the balance and cause destruction.

Either by fear or anger.

The more you deny —the stronger it gets. The more you reject the stronger it's existence.

Suppressing negative emotions and acting as if it doesn't bother you will cause you one day to break.

Every being has limitations. And you are not exempted.

3) Strength is found in weakness

Most people will get this wrong and decide to show their weakness to other people but what I mean from this is —if you can become comfortable with your weaknesses, it's only a matter of time until you become no.1 in your expertise.

You never know how much you can handle until you are forced to put everything you have in one go.

You cannot know your limits until you never know when you've hit it.

Strength is molded by exposure to weakness.

To deliberately allow yourself to be vulnerable and work on your weaknesses is where strength is found.

There is talent and skill but they won't help if you never get to understand yourself.

4) Emotional stability is a skill most people lack

Anxiety is emotions getting out of control.

Stoicism was the one that exposed me to emotional stability.

People focus on what they feel instead of what's actually happening.

Their monkey brain takes control —disallowing logical thoughts to appear.

Being logical 24/7 is exhausting. There's things analysis cannot explain.

And managing your emotions is a process. There are adults who act like children and teenagers who act like adults.

I've seen people burst in sadness and anger in the smallest way of irritation and difficulties in life.

They lack control.

Always complaining, gravitating the problem and causing collateral damage to other people's mental health.

Your emotions are valid but being unable to control and cause damage to other people isn't.

Most people are emotional not logical.

Be different.

6) Most people have given up in life

There are people who are 100% negative. All they do is cause problems and create drama.

They thrive in negativity even if it causes pain in their loved ones.

But there's always a reason.

Growing up being abused by your parents, or experiencing something traumatic when you are young is one of the main causes why some people end up being nihilistic.

They've given up on life and want other people to feel their pain.

They would rather let the world burn than to heal and fix their emotional wounds.

Such people cannot be helped unless they show change.

Only themselves will be able to fix their inner pain.

You can help them but not too much.

You have to avoid them or your life will become a disaster.

7) The world doesn't hate you

There are people who believe the world was out there to get them. Thinking they deserve all the bad things happening in their life.

What a stupid mindset.

I had thoughts like that too back then. But thinking about it —this self imposed misery is pathetic.

Negative things do make you stronger. But to plague your mindset with poison is self-sabotage in another level.

• You don't need to always prioritize other people.

• You don't need to always believe what your mind says.

• You do not need to shoulder all the problems other people have.

This mindset is common.

You only look at the bad but never focus on the good.

You always complain but rarely ever thank GOD for the blessings you have in life.

A good life starts with a positive mindset.

8) You are blessed. You're just blind to it.

Yesterday I traveled somewhere.

I saw a dude walking with a disability. A mother with only one leg supported with a cane and a man who's mouth cannot be closed.

Then I looked at my body:

• I can eat

• I can run

• I can walk

• I can talk properly

• I can close my mouth

• I can travel perfectly fine

I felt an immeasurable amount of gratitude.

People often look at the problems of their life and complain.

They never think about what other people are going through and focus only on themselves.

Being self-obsessed can cloud your judgements.

Time to time learn to see how other people are doing and learn from it.

Focusing only on yourself 24/7 will cause misery to take root.

If you've got good health, a fully functional body and a mind that can read and think —you're blessed.

9) It doesn't go away in one day

One thing I noticed people do a lot to overcome their anxiety is do hacks and tricks only for a day.

It doesn't work that way.

Affirmations do not work the moment you say it.

Confidence hacks doesn't work if you only did it for a day.

You cannot become mentally healthy under a day, a week or a month.

You have to put at least 3 months of consistent progress if you want to see changes in your brain.

I see people asking tips and tricks online how their problems go away but only want to do the easy stuff.

They don't want to dig deep and understand the root cause.

So they suffer non-stop.

If you want to become mentally tough. Look at years not months or weeks.

10) People pleasing attitude

Didn't expect this did you.

But people pleasing is deeply rooted to fear of judgement and criticisms from other people.

It's a intrinsic desire to be seen and felt loved by people who don't care about you.

It's an ironic desire that doesn't serve you in any way.

You have to deliberately stop being selfless.

Because you are probably nice —not kind.

It's not the same.

11 ) Fear is a b*tch

I talked about fear in the last letter briefly but in this letter I'd like to give it a longer dive.

Fear is simple to understand. The more you expose yourself to the thing you are scared of the lesser it's resistance.

Because fear is paradoxical. The more you deny and reject it's existence the stronger it gets. But if you confront and run towards it —the weaker it becomes.

Let's take the example of approaching girls.

Most of young men's biggest fear (I hope you fear failing to succeed more than caring about girls).

Your first approach is the hardest. Your heart's beating, your mind's erupting with irrational thoughts and your hands sweating.

You walk up to the girl scared. You get eye to eye contact. You look down for a bit and look up again seeing that she's smiling.

You say "Hi" with a weak tone. She says "Hello".

Then you run away.

Now you have 2 thoughts in your mind:

• Man I'm so glad I did that

• I wish made the conversation longer.

But inside you the grip of fear weakened. It's no longer as bad as it used to be.

Then the next day you do it again. You've built a little guts this time.

Your "Hi" became firm. You've got experience this time.

Now you know you can talk longer. You ask about — "Where can I find the supermarket?"

She says "right there in the corner". You say "thanks".

This is just a story but I see many young men plague by the existence of girls.

They get anxious and paralyzed if a girl is near them.

Thinking they are some kind of being that shouldn't exist in the mortal realm.

They are human like you and certainly the only reason you fear them is because you haven't tried approaching them.

I do not want you to live a sh*tty life. Build some guts and start talking to the opposite sex.

You will build confidence.

I will not talk about this as much but this has been proven otherwise to be a problem.

And focusing on girls is artificial. It only brings happiness from the start and misery later on.

The party boy lifestyle gets old fast.

Mission and purpose lasts for a lifetime.

The emotional brain: A brief breakdown.

Inside you there are different parts of your brain.

There are 3 main parts which is the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem.

I won't talk about it all but let's focus on the amygdala.

This little thing here is responsible for causing you a lot of mental stress.

It's not completely bad but it's the one that processes your fears —signaling to your brain to do "fight or flight" response.

I will spare you the scientific part and only focus on the psychological aspect.

Thousand of years ago your ancestors had to deal with a ton of problems.

They had to look out for threats they have no knowledge about and defend themselves not knowing how to.

In the modern world we can grab books or google something we don't understand.

This makes us more comfortable but weaker.

Yourancestors didn't have any of this. They don't have any access to anything other than what they're fore fathers or mothers have told them.

Information today is abundant. And that's exactly why you're so scared.

You see, you are not supposed to know everything. The brain simply cannot handle too many information at once.

But because you can swipe —swipe—swipe very easily.

Your brain starts to make irrational assumptions.

I remember reading about venom snakes. I told myself to never go out in the forest again because I'll risk being bitten by snakes.

The caveat here is learning how to control your knowledge.

While information is great if you cannot learn how to stay rational then you'll become delusional.

Experts are a notable example of this.

They are so deep in one topic that they disregard everything that supplies a different argument.

They keep telling people it's impossible to do this because of that or that's now how it works.

Experts are good, but if they don't diversify they risk becoming one dimensional.

David Goggin's wanted to break the most pull ups record in 24 hours. Many experts told him that it was impossible because of his arm length and weight.

He was told his physique wasn't built for pull-ups.

17 hours later he broke the record. He failed once. But he tried again.

What's the connection? See Goggin's has his amygdala under control.

If he didn't he would've believed the experts.

He would've disbelieved in his potential and never broke the record.

Your brain functions the same as those experts.

Everyday you will experience your brain talking as if you're supposed to fail and never make progress.

As if every thing you're supposed to do isn't going to work out..

Overly rationalizing thoughts that are zero value added to your life.

It's a simple way to explain how the amygdala works. I am no scientist and will not explain to you the complex neural pathways of the brain.

Your brain is riddled with fear experts.

It overly analyzes everything and derives into a conclusion that what you're about to do is too dangerous even though it isn't.

Kind of funny honestly.

Because if your so used to being fearful simple things like "reciting in class" or "speaking in public" is perceived as a life or death situation by your amygdala

Once you break the cycle —you'll realize how stupid of you it was to believe whatever your mind is saying.

Building Mental Fortitude: The 3 Basic Principles of Mental Stability.

Principle 1: Taking control of the narrative

Inside you, there are stories you've made before that isn't serving you well.

• "I'm a loser"

• I'm a failure"

• I'm a good for nothing son"

You need to take control of whatever it is your mind is saying.

You have to dig deep into the identity you've built and question why?

Every time your mind is being a b*tch you command it to stop.

This takes practice and isn't easy to do.

You will suffer many times because you'll fail plenty of times.

But whatever the case it may be —you cannot skip this process.

Grab a pen and paper.

Journal your mistakes and past failures you've had. Then flip the switch.

Write down exactly the opposite things you are going to do.

Write down what you plan to do in the future instead. What you can learn from your past mistakes.

It should be:

• 1-2 pages for your mistakes and failures

• 1-2 pages for the lessons you've learned

• 1 page actionable plan for your future.

Make it hurt. Be specific. Don't be vague about it. Make sure you can feel the wound deep.

It's normal. That pain inside you was buried.

Let it out and let it heal.

Principle 2: Mental health

The better your mental health the stronger your resistance to emotional pain and impulsive behaviors.

Right now you are probably depressed and aren't aware of it.

Your job is to asses the current state of your mental health.

You need to look deeply at your mind and see patterns.

If you constantly feel the world hates you, have su*cidal thoughts and feel everything is hopeless.

Your mental health has hit rock bottom.

You need to fix it.

Do:

• Gratitude journaling: Immediately after you wake up grab a pen and paper. Then write down 3 things you are grateful for.

  • "I am grateful I get to eat 3x a day"

  • "I am grateful I get to write my thoughts and aid in my future goals

  • "I am grateful to have a loving family that takes care of me

• Visualizations: Your tasks here is to delete the imaginative scenarios that makes you look like a loser. In your mind, see your self as the hero, the one who will take down the demon king. See yourself as the man that will alleviate your family from poverty. Self-image is a crucial aspect if you want to control your mind.

• Say "Thank you" and "You're welcome" often. Words impact your mind. If you keep saying negative things all the time then you'll became poisoned with negativity.

I already talked about this in the previous letters but I'll repeat this one again.

I expect you to do this. If not, then continue suffering.

Principle 3: Influence and reinforcement.

In the past letters I've mentioned how negative influences can dictate a lot of your actions.

If you consume a lot of news —you'll notice that it's all about problems.

Wars, politics issues, poverty etc.…

Basically everything that makes your life worse. Social media is no different.

You'll see people doing better than you, making more money than you, more attractive than you and winning more than you.

It's all a bunch of strings pulled together to maximize your insecurity.

Blocking and reporting certain people that post about negative things don't work.

People like to make the excuse "you can just block it", and the algorithm won't show it to you again". WRONG.

There are millions of users in social media. You think you can block them all?

Much better is to change and delete. But I know that's going to be hard for you.

You'll most likely install the app again after a day or two.

So here's a better alternative.

Stick to people that educate. Like this newsletter you're reading right now.

People reply in my emails telling me they're less stressed because they've read The Improvement Letter.

And I'm proud of it. I believe in my writings and my craft. I write with 100% conviction.

I don't care if you unsubscribe or disagree with what I write. I will keep believing in my work no matter what. People have found value in my craft and I plan to bring more.

Positive influence is a make or break factor.

If you constantly consume brain rot content like pranks and YouTuber Drama —you can expect your future self to be worse than you are right now.

There's even this wooden like man meme who has a club in his hand.

TikTok is even worse. It's straight up brain dead content.

The things people create nowadays is straight up weird. I feel a horrid feeling inside every time I see such creations.

Do yourself a favor and avoid this type of content. It's 100% absolutely useless to your life.

This letter has become long and might get clipped by Gmail.

If you'd like me to expand on this topic even more, reply below.

This was a short actionable plan but it's a good starting point. If I tell you everything you have to do —you'll just get overwhelmed and not even try.

Thanks and see you next week.

-Noat

PS: Did you find this weeks letter helpful? Shoot me a reply below and let me know. I'm eager to hear your response.

P. PS: Share this to some friends if you liked it. I’ll also start a referring network in the next coming weeks. If you hit a certain amount of referrals you’ll be able to get my help 1:1.