Short letters, sent a few times a week, on mindset, psychology, and how high-caliber people think. If you're into that, it's free to subscribe.
You're hearing voices again...
From the Desk of Calvin TrieuUnexplored Letters What I've Been Reflecting On Nothing Is Impossible. Your Doubts Are. Somewhere between the alarm and the first cup of coffee this morning, a thought crept in. Maybe it was about the week ahead. Maybe it was about the thing you keep saying you're going to do. Maybe it was that quiet voice that said "you're already behind." That voice isn't telling you the truth. It's just loud. I was watching a Navy SEAL talk about how he made it through BUD/S, through Hell Week, through the cold water, through every moment his body was screaming at him to quit. And his instructor kept telling him the same thing, over and over: "This isn't impossible. It's just hard." That's it. That was the whole thing. The training wasn't going to kill him. The cold wasn't going to kill him. What was going to take him out, if anything was the story he told himself about the cold. The catastrophizing. The mental movie where he fast-forwarded to every bad thing that hadn't even happened yet. Here's what I want you to understand about your beliefs: they're not facts. They're sentences you've repeated so many times they started to feel like facts. "I always fall off after a few weeks." "I'm not the type of person who follows through."That's not the truth. That's just a story on repeat. And here's the part that actually matters...you may not be able to control your first thought. But you can control your second one. The first thought shows up uninvited. Fine. Let it. But the second thought? That's a choice. And that choice shapes your emotion. Your emotion shapes your behavior. Your behavior, repeated, builds your identity. Your identity determines your reality. You have more control than you think. You've just been giving it away to a voice that doesn't deserve it. So here's what you do today. Not this week. Not this month. Today. Keep your head down. Find the task right in front of you. Do that one thing. Win that micro-moment. Then find the next one. Stop rehearsing hypothetical disasters. Stop running the highlight reel of everything that could go wrong. None of that has happened. None of it is real. The only thing that's real is what's in front of you right now and that you can handle. You're not behind. You're standing at the starting line of the right version of yourself. Be where your feet are. Journaling Prompt
Talk soon. Calvin Share this letter with a friend here. Follow me on social: |
Unexplored Letters
Short letters, sent a few times a week, on mindset, psychology, and how high-caliber people think. If you're into that, it's free to subscribe.
From the Desk of Calvin Trieu Unexplored Letters What I've Been Reflecting On I've been sitting with something this week. Q1 is over. And I've been asking myself honestly, did it go the way I thought it would? January 1st I came in swinging. New state, new city, rebuilding my business from scratch, starting my PhD, training for a marathon, signed up for my first ultra. The ambition was there. The hunger was there. But so was the crack in the system. What I didn't account for was that I was...
From the Desk of Calvin Trieu Unexplored Letters What I've Been Reflecting On What you avoid grows teeth There’s something I need to admit. I haven’t been writing these letters. The last one went out at the end of January. Before that, I had built an eight-week streak I was genuinely proud of. Every week I showed up, wrote, reflected, and sent something into the world. Then the rhythm broke. And the strange thing about avoidance is that it doesn’t sit quietly. It grows teeth. For the past few...
From the Desk of Calvin Trieu Unexplored Letters Internal Memo A quick reminder for the middle of the week. Standards aren't something you set once and move on from. They're something you either reinforce daily or quietly negotiate away. Early in the week, it's easy to feel inspired and clear. You reflect, you recommit, and you tell yourself that this time is different. That clarity feels good on a Monday. Almost automatic. Midweek is where that clarity gets tested. This is usually where...