Last week was a nightmare…

It kicked off with me getting a parking ticket.

I know that everyone says this but IT WASN’T MY FAULT.

Some engineers were installing local fibre optics on the street opposite, so they suspended the parking bay outside my house for the day.

They spent about 2 hours working on the other side of the road, and then packed up to go.

Foolishly, I assumed they had finished (well, actually they WERE finished!), so I moved my car back 45 mins before the ‘official’ suspension ended.

Within 30 seconds I had a ticket!

B******S!

I realise that, technically, I had broken the rule, but I was outraged at the injustice.

(I’m currently using ChatGPT to formulate an appeal!)

But that was only the beginning.

Two days later, I broke my brand new £3,000 MacbookPro laptop (a thing of great beauty, I have to say).

I closed the screen, not realising that a cable was lying across the keyboard.

Then when I opened it again, the screen was cracked.

Gutted!

I love using laptops – especially this high-powered one—because my desktop is too slow.

But, sadly, I had to go back to the cumbersome old brute and struggle through the piles of work I needed to do.

The day after that, I saw a furry mouse scurrying through my study.

I’m not a great fan of mice, and was irked that our two house cats hadn’t clocked the invader and promptly dispatched it.

Then on Sunday I pulled a muscle in my leg when I was training, all because I was in a rush beforehand and didn’t bother to stretch properly.

By the end of the week, I was hobbling about the house in agony, feeling anxious and morose.

I had a busy week ahead and I’d lost all confidence that I’d get through the week without another string of mishaps.

Do you ever get weeks like that?

Sometimes whole MONTHS like that?

Perhaps even YEARS?

It feels like you’re at the receiving end of some curse put on you by an angry witch, or that you’ve somehow disturbed the grave of an ancient Pharaoh.

Each problem, obstacle and hiccup you experience…

Each doubt, sadness and worry…

They all stack up into a narrative you tell yourself,

“It’s all going wrong….”

“The world is against me….”

“I’m a walking disaster….”

“I can’t do this anymore.”

It can crash your confidence to the point where you give up on your big goals in life.

Or you push aside potential moneymaking opportunities because… well…

“It’s not the right time and it’s never going to work and everything is going to hell in a handcart.”

But here’s the thing…

The Story is Always Biased

The story you tell yourself is just that – a story.

Like all stories, it’s told from a certain perspective, focussing on certain events and experiences, while leaving others out.

In my case, the string of mishaps I experienced last week were TOTALLY UNRELATED to each other.

My conscious mind had linked them together into a meaningful story – and a negative one, at that.

Actually, I could have focussed on the many great things that happened that same week…

I had a fantastic night out on Saturday, meeting some friends and watching a couple of noisy psychedelic bands in Shoreditch.

Then I took the family around a fascinating National Trust property (Sutton House in Hackney).

This was the same day that Heloise and I celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary, one in which I presented her with an antique Austro-Hungarian opal ring (opals are a 24th anniversary gift, apparently!)

And just a few days later, my daughter aced her GCSE results.

Now, if I were to string those events together instead of the negative ones (mice, parking ticket, broken laptop, leg injury) the story would be different.

Now the narrative would be: “I am so lucky to have a beautiful wife and clever kids…. I enjoy a very comfortable life where I can afford fine jewellery… I live in an interesting part of London where I get to enjoy cultural events and meet up with friends.”

The same is likely to apply to you.

Because all humans have a tendency towards negativity bias.

This is where negative experiences have a greater impact on our thoughts, emotions, and decisions than positive ones…. EVEN when the positive events have equal weight.

It’s that primal urge to seek out potential danger, wherever it may lie, and focus on that above all other things.

However, this isn’t the only factor at play.

There are other biases too….

• Recency bias – this is where we place more emphasis and significance on the most recent events we have experienced, thereby discounting other periods in life where things have gone well.
• Availability bias – negative events are often easier to recall than positive ones. Because they pop into your head more quickly and easily, you assume that they’re more common or more representative of your life story.

All these forms of bias can combine to influence how we view our life and our prospects for success in the future.

If we like we’re cursed by negative experiences, then over time we become convinced that any future attempts to improve our lives are likely to fail.

Our setbacks become a form of PROOF that things will always go badly.

This is a form of cognitive distortion known as ‘catastrophising’.

So if you suffer from this, what can you do about it?

Well, the obvious first step is to understand that your story is naturally biased, and not the whole story.

When you understand the psychology of negativity bias, you can spot when it happens, and put in place some countermeasures.

Four Ways to Change the Story

These could include:

• Write down ‘3 wins’ each night before you go to bed – Even if you think you have had a terrible day, find at least three reasons to be cheerful. They don’t have to be major successes and triumphs. They could be small things like “finished watching that course module,” “went for a walk,” or “cooked a delicious dinner.”
• Write a positively biased weekly story – Instead of listing what went wrong, list the week’s highlights as if you were trying to convince a friend how good your life is. You’ll see how different the narrative can look when you focus on the positive.
• Spot the bias – The moment you catch yourself thinking “everything’s against me,” remind yourself that this is just negativity bias, not reality.
• Shrink the catastrophe – when something negative happens that really annoys you (like me pulling a muscle or getting a parking ticket). Ask: “Will this REALLY matter in a month? A year?” Often the answer is “probably not.” This is a good way to reduce the pain and anger when something bad happens.

Try these out over the next few weeks and see if they have any influence on how you view your future.

And if these techniques work, please do share the results with me!