Ask: what is the actual probability?

Explicitly estimate the realistic likelihood of the feared outcome — not how it feels, but what the evidence says.

Why it works

Anxiety hijacks probability estimation: feared outcomes feel far more likely than they are. This is driven by the availability heuristic (vividly imagined events feel probable) and by the fact that anxiety itself is taken as evidence that danger is near. Externalizing the estimate — writing a number, comparing it to base rates — forces deliberate processing that partially overrides the intuitive inflation.

How to do it

1. Name the specific feared outcome: "My presentation will go so badly I’ll be fired."
2. Estimate a realistic probability: how often does someone in your position actually get fired for a bad presentation?
3. Compare that number to how it feels. Note the gap.

Evidence

Probability overestimation in anxiety is among the most robustly documented cognitive distortions, and cognitive restructuring targeting it is a core element of CBT for anxiety disorders, with meta-analytic support. (rct)

Most evidence is for CBT protocols as whole programs; isolating the probability-estimation step as a standalone intervention is less directly trialed.

Sources

• Clark & Beck (2010), Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders — probability overestimation as core distortion

Common mistake

Setting the probability question aside because "it doesn’t matter how unlikely it is, I’m still scared" — which is true, but the point is not to eliminate fear by thinking, it’s to make the appraisal accurate so the fear is proportionate.