Mini Toolkit

CREATE AWARENESS

1. Rate your anxiety using the SUDS scale (below):

10	Highest anxiety/distress that you have ever felt
9	Extremely anxious/distressed
8	Very anxious/distressed; can’t concentrate. Physiological signs present (e.g. racing heart, sweating, stomach distress, shortness of breath).
7	Quite anxious/distressed; interfering with functioning. Physiological signs may be present (e.g. racing heart, sweating, stomach distress, shortness of breath).
6	Moderate-to-strong anxiety or distress
5	Moderate anxiety/distress; uncomfortable, but can continue to function
4	Mild-to-moderate anxiety or distress
3	Mild anxiety/distress; no interference with functioning
2	Minimal anxiety/distress
1	Alert and awake; concentrating well
0	No distress; total relaxation

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REDUCE PHYSIOLOGICAL AROUSAL*

Optional if anxiety rating is under 7

1. Put one of the TIPP skills into practice. Mark which skill you used below:

   • Temperature: splashing cold water on your face

   • Intense Exercise: exercising for 20-30 min

   • Paced Breathing: slowing breathing, taking care to take longer out breaths

   • Progressive Muscle Relaxation: tensing then releasing muscle groups

2. Re-rate your anxiety using the SUDS scale: ________

*Repeat this step up to one more time if your score did not go down. Remember, we don't want to get trapped in a cycle of avoidance!

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CHALLENGE BIASED THINKING

1. Briefly describe the code review situation.

2. Write down your biased thoughts in table format.

Guiding questions:

1. How am I doubting my abilities as an engineer?

2. How am I doubting my abilities to manage my anxiety?

3. What am I worried will happen?

4. What do I think are the consequences of that outcome happening?

5. What am I afraid it means to / about me if that outcome were to happen?

Thought	Pre- Believability (0-100)	Post- Believability (0-100)
Example: Everyone will think I’m bad at coding	73	30

1. For each biased thought, rate how strongly you believe each to be true on a 0-100 scale in the “pre-believability” column of the table.

2. Write down the thought you most strongly believe to be true.

3. Write down any thinking traps you see in the thought you most strongly believe to be true:

4. Evaluate the evidence for and against this thought:

Thinking Trap	Definition	Example Thought
Catastrophizing	Predicting something very negative will happen without any evidence	I’m going to introduce a breaking change to production.
Dichotomous Thinking	Considering only the extremes and nothing in between	I’m an incompetent software developer.
Minimizing	Discounting positive experiences, outcomes, or qualities	They only approved my pull request because they feel bad for me.
Mind Reading	Believing you know what others are thinking, failing to consider other, more likely, possibilities	I’m annoying my teammates by asking for a code review.
Negative Filter	Attending to only the negative aspects of a situation	I haven’t thought of all the possible edge cases.
Over- generalizing	Generalizing a single instance as being indicative of all others	I introduced a bug to production last time so I’ll probably do the same this time.
Personalizing	Assuming an action is directed to or because of oneself	They left a bunch of comments because they think I’m incompetent.
Should Statements	Having a fixed idea of what should happen & overestimating how bad it is that these expectations aren’t met	I have years of development experience. I really shouldn’t feel anxious about code reviews.

Guiding Questions:

• Am I 100% sure of this? Can I tell the future, or read minds?

• What is the worst that could happen? Could I handle it?

• Is there another explanation/ way of looking at this situation?

• Am I placing unrealistic and unattainable standards on myself that I wouldn’t expect another person to achieve?

• Am I overestimating the probability of this?

• Am I blaming myself for a situation outside of my control?

• Does ___ really mean that I am ___?

Evidence FOR: (The thought is realistic and true)	Evidence AGAINST: (The thought is unrealistic and false)
* If there is evidence in this column, check to see if they are due to thinking errors!

1. Write down a rational response in response to your biased thought and rate its believability below:

Guiding Questions

1. What is a more balanced view of the situation?

2. What would you say if this were your best friend/partner/child?

3. What was the strongest piece of evidence against your thought?

4. Go back to the table of biased thoughts and re-rate how strongly you believe each to be true on a 0-100 scale in the “post-believability” column of the table.

5. Rate your current anxiety using the SUDS scale: ___________

Rational Response	Believability Rating (0-100)

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PROACTIVELY ENGAGE

If you are about to ask for a review, plan ahead and write down how you will ask for a review like a DEAR.

• Describe the request

• Express how you feel about it

• Ask for specific feedback

• Reinforce with gratitude and responsiveness

Write down a practice review request below:

Example: “Could I get a review? I’m not feeling confident about the way I did XYZ 😩, so could you pay extra attention to that section? Thanks! I appreciate you!”

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If you are about to give a review, plan ahead and write down how you will GIVE.

• Gentle

• Interested

• Validate

• Easy manner

Write down a practice review below:

Example: “I can see a lot of effort and dedication went into this and I appreciate the approach you took. The code looks really solid, and it lays a good foundation for the new feature. I think you could move a couple constants created here to the settings file, but otherwise this code is very DRY. Great work!”