Why worry worrying is a hard habit to break, especially because we often believe we should worry.
We might tell ourselves that worrying helps us think of solutions to a problem, prevents us from being
blindsided by bad news shows we care, can make things turn out well, helps motivate us.
These beliefs generally are false.
For example, we cannot avoid potential being by imagining the worst case scenario, which would be
just as upsetting if it actually happened.
Blast.
We feel needless to stress from countless worries that never materialize.
When we see the futility of worry, we are more likely to redirect our thoughts, thus our predictions.
This technique sits at the intersection of cognitive and behavioral approaches.
When you've identified a fear about how a specific situation will turn out, you can design a way to
see if your forecast was right.
Lily dealt with a lot of social anxiety at work.
She was convinced that if she spoke up in a meeting, her colleagues would ignore her ideas and probably
even criticize them.
She wrote down these and other expected outcomes before a meeting, and then she took a risk and volunteered
her thoughts.
While people seemed a bit surprised when she spoke up and nobody criticized her ideas.
In fact, her supervisor asked her to lead a support group that would develop her proposal.
After the meeting completely narrowed down the actual outcome versus her prediction.
Our core beliefs can distort our memories, thereby reinforcing our beliefs.
It's important to record when our predictions turn out to be false, to help us encode and remember
information that's counter to our expectations.
Testing our predictions is closely tied to exposure.