Joanne Smith explains how aiming for tiny improvements, like making a task just 1% easier, can reduce anxiety. She describes breaking a 16-year pattern of expecting negative outcomes and argues that small, realistic adjustments create space for genuine progress.
So the expectation that maybe tomorrow could just even be just a 1% easier, like I can just do a little bit better, a tiny bit better, and just, I can actually feel slightly calmer if something flares up. It's just... Setting an expectation that doesn't feel out of reach. Um, so maybe, um, I can be a bit less scared, tiny bit. Um, or even allowing the possibility that things might change. It's still a slightly new expectation, and it's more realistic, more believable, because I think you've got more chance of it feeling more authentic as well, because like I say, it's really hard to go from, in one step, it's hard to go from having 16 years of having the same thing on repeat in this predictive coding pattern. In the beginning, you begin to recognise, oh, I'm unintentionally expecting this. I'm checking as soon as I wake up. So it's just an awareness really, and then just a tiny little bit of a— even noticing that and understanding it and learning about that can be enough to open up some— well, to create some space for a slightly improved expectation. So it's not about positive thinking, it's accurate, accurate, realistic thinking.
