Empirical Expectation: The Key To Behaviour Change

While there are many things a workplace can do to promote emotional wellbeing and productivity, we have to deal with the personal side too. We can work in the most supportive environment possible but our well-being would still be affected by what is going on in our personal lives. Aim to make both aspects of our day to day experience more emotionally healthy and you are pre-armed to deal with stresses far better.

Putting our stresses and emotions in context is very important. Left unchecked we can get caught in a situation where we catastrophise the situation and it appears much more difficult to deal with. Ask yourself what would you expect to feel from the current circumstances. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to feel under pressure right now? Is this pressure likely to continue indefinitely? Is that helpful to be worrying about that particular thing right now? Does it need dealing with… right now?

An example: 

You have an important meeting with a client at work but you are stuck in traffic and worry that you are going to be late. Of course, you want to make a favourable impression and being late is not ideal. On top of this, you had a row with your partner about whose family you were going to spend Christmas with and you said some things you now rather wish you hadn’t. Also preying on your mind is the ‘phone-call’ appointment you have with the doctor about some blood test results. This has been worrying you because the doctor asked to speak to you, which has led you to expect the worse.

Each part of what they are experiencing is stressful and likely to cause a person to feel under pressure or at the very least feel angry, annoyed and fed up. When we put them in context we can seem a bit more for what they are…

I’m sure you can see that if there hadn’t been an important client meeting coming up and underlying health worries which led to the blood tests, it is quite likely that you wouldn’t have snapped about the Christmas arrangements; or at least not said some of the things you now regret. Of course, you don’t want to spend Christmas with the relatives, but the added pressures of everything else going on allowed the stress to get out in another way. 

So… dealing with what is more important right now is probably best. You could call into the office and let them know about the traffic situation. Consider that if the traffic is so bad then it is most likely the client will be late too. Yes, it is important to be on time…. but in the end, it is what you do that matters… the meeting itself. You can make sure you have time earmarked in your diary for the doctors call so that you are not trying to fit it in between meetings. Finally, you can talk about Christmas another time with your partner, and acknowledge that the way you said what you did was because of everything else that is going on. It all doesn’t have to be done right now.

Stop and look at everything that is going on in your life at the current time. It may feel like everything has to be done right now but in reality, you practically can’t do that; priorities need to be considered.

It is also clear that the person in our example is likely to find those situations more stressful if, for example, they have a competitive work environment or have a lower level of self-worth than would be ideal. They will interpret the situation as ‘evidence’ of how they are incompetent, or how ‘everything goes wrong.' 

Being able to contextualise our concerns and stresses in life help to shrink the big worry into something more manageable.

Remembering the difference between stress and anxiety is also important. In chapter four I explained how stress can be viewed as external pressure while anxiety is internal pressure, and one has an impact on the other. The greater the internal stress (anxiety) the more pronounced will be the external pressures (stress).


While we may tend to use past experiences to inform our behaviour in future ones, it is also worth remembering that each experience is unique to that experience. There may be similarities in experience but each one is ultimately unique to us. Our experiences are not carbon copies of the next one… they inform us but equally, we should be cautious of letting them direct us to dominantly.

The person who failed their driving test and books a re-test may be doing the same test again, but it is a different experience. They would benefit from remembering that each experience is a single event and expecting negative outcomes, because that’s what happened last time, is not going to produce the best results. See it as a single experience where you can learn from the last.

To make significant changes in our lives, we have to engage in adaptive thinking. We have to recognise the way we are dealing with things is not unhelpful, and adapt it to make the best of the stressful situation. You may not be able to change the situation and the stress it causes but you can change the way you approach it.

Meaningful change takes time and motivation and is not likely to occur with a ‘quick fix’ approach. 

The problem is that we are impatient. We want all the changes right now… and why not? But reality and common sense tell us that it takes incremental changes that we engage with most of the time. It is more useful to think of meaningful life changes to be a marathon rather than a sprint, but always remember that the marathon comes to an end; it just takes longer.

Language: Its Suggestive Effects

A good kickstart to adaptive thinking is to eliminate the word ‘try’ from your vocabulary. The problem with it is that the very word has an implication of failure about it. We hear people say: “I’m going to try and lose weight”, or “I’m going to try and be calm when I give that presentation.” Each time we are giving ourselves an exit to failure. This isn’t a criticism, we’ve all done it. It stems from a fear of the unknown and we are more likely to use it when we feel the demands upon us are greater than our current capabilities.

Adapt your thinking to focus on what you are going to do. You will lose weight. You will be calm and relaxed during the presentation. Post-Hypnotic suggestion explains the way we program ourselves to behave through the things we say to ourselves. “Try” would be a foolish word to use in a suggestion. We could all benefit from checking our language. It does not mean it has to be unrealistically positive, but we should consider what we want to happen, and nurture that expectation.


Consider that if you were preparing for a job interview. It would be useful to take some of the preparation time to check the language you are using when you think about it. Is your thinking based on what you want to happen or rather a negative expectation? For example, ‘I would like the job, but it all depends who else has applied.” That very thought, if allowed to take hold, undermines your self-worth and creates a negative expectation of the outcome. Adapt that thinking to focus on the skills and talents you have that are relevant to the job, and spend time thinking about how you will best show those off during your interview.

A positive expectation is not about blindly saying everything is fantastic, but rather remembering that you can make it a positive experience through the way you approach it, and by doing this you are taking control of the parts of the experience you have control over.

Our expectations and goals need to have intention behind them. Behavioural changes are unlikely to occur if they are ‘good ideas’ without any real intention to do it.


The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1989) suggests that our intention to engage in a behaviour is shaped by our attitude towards that behaviour (how desirable the outcome of that behaviour might be), social norms (what we think others are doing and would like us to do), and our perceived behavioural control (how likely we think we are at successfully achieving that behaviour).

For example the goal of following an exercise programme. We have an attitude towards it; we will feel healthier and exercise has been known to help with mood and stress. You expect the consequences to be good overall (behavioural attitude). 

Other people seem to enjoy the exercise; friends and relatives go to the gym and you have observed the positive attitude they have about it. Your doctor has said that it is a good thing to do (subjective norm). 

You believe that you can do it. You know there will be times when it is difficult, but you are prepared for that by exercising with people that you know to keep you motivated. You have done this before (perceived behavioural control).

In this example, all the boxes have been ticked to create a positive intention which can lead to positive behaviour change. You have a positive belief about the outcomes, you are using your personal experience and those around you to bolster that belief as well as believing that you can control the obstacles along the way. Perfect. However, out of all three elements, it can be argued that perceived behavioural control is the most important. In fact, without it, you are more likely to bypass the good intentions created and not activate positive behavioural change.

New Years Resolutions work similarly. You may have good intentions in January but without the belief (perceived behavioural control) that you can and will act upon them, you are more likely to flounder. When we understand that it takes effort and time to achieve positive change in our lives then we can deal with the up’s and down’s that come with it.

Find out more and book a free initial consultation at www.ketteringhypnotherapy.com or call David direct on 01536 350328