WHAT ARE BIASED EXPECTATIONS? Biased expectations are negative thoughts that commonly occur when we worry about a situation or are in a situation where we feel worried or threatened. This is usually a situation where we use an unhelpful rule or assumption and think in a negative way which makes us feel really bad. For example: If someone doesn’t include me in the conversation, they must not like me When this happens, we tend to make predictions about how things will turn out and these predictions often tend to be negative. For example, we: 1. Overestimate the likelihood that bad things will happen 2. Exaggerate how bad things will be 3. Underestimate our ability to deal with things if they don’t go well, and ignore other factors in the situation, which suggest that things will not be as bad as we are predicting. When we jump to such negative conclusions and think negatively about the future, we tend behave in particular ways. We tend to: • Avoid the situation • Try the situation out but escape when things seem too difficult or the anxiety seems overwhelming • Be overly cautious and pay attention to ourselves not others Unhelpful thoughts and behaviours contribute to how we feel, often making us incredibly anxious, nervous, uncertain, and unconfident about things – and this narrative then confirms our negative thoughts. Here’s an example: We believe we are not liked (a biased expectation)– this makes us feel shy and not confident. In a social setting, if we’re shy and not confident we don’t speak to people as much as we ordinarily would. Or show our best self. Because we don’t speak to people much, people don’t speak to us as much. This then means we feel even more like people don’t like us. But really, we have no hard evidence to say that is true, it’s just how we’re thinking about the situation and behaving in the situation.
“Your life isn’t about one big break. It’s about taking one significant life transforming step at a time” Oprah winfrey
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