UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone 453. Coaching Hotline: Making Mistakes at Work & Coping with Stress
Dec 30, 2025
Fear of making mistakes at work can be paralyzing, especially in high-stakes environments. One listener grapples with the anxiety of professional consequences, while another battles stress-induced habits like overeating. The host explores how catastrophizing and overestimating risks can distort our thinking. She emphasizes the importance of addressing emotions rather than just behaviors, suggesting reframing choices around stress and guilt. Lastly, she introduces a framework to set ambitious goals for the future, guiding listeners to reshape their mindset.
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Recency Bias Inflates Professional Fears
- Kara explains our brains overestimate rare negative outcomes due to recency bias and constant exposure to failures in high-stakes fields.
- This cognitive bias inflates fear beyond actual statistical likelihood and skews decision-making under uncertainty.
Fear Is About Anticipated Meaning
- The real terror isn't the event itself but the meanings and self-judgments you expect to have if it happens.
- Managing those future thoughts now reduces present fear and prevents paralysis.
Clients’ Jail Fears Revealed As Thought Patterns
- Kara recounts clients whose imagined horror of jail was rooted in their anticipatory thoughts rather than the reality of incarceration.
- These examples show that managing thoughts changes emotional responses to feared outcomes.