Graded exposure works the way a staircase does: each step small enough to take and high enough to count. Put these seven rungs in order, then climb the ladder you actually built — repeat a rung until your anticipatory anxiety has fallen by about half, and only then move up. Skipping produces a bad experience that teaches the wrong lesson, and you will feel it.
Order these from mildly to severely uncomfortable
Rung 1 of 7 · week 1
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Anxiety before—
Start here
Take the first rung. Repeat it until the green mark on the bar is reached — that mark is half of where this rung started, which is the rule that makes a ladder work.
Your peer wrote on the feedback form
The log
Empty. Keep one line per attempt — date, rung, anxiety before, anxiety after, one thing that went fine. This log is the evidence base your self-efficacy will draw on in week twelve, and memory will lie to you about all of it.