Coaching practices for How to Avoid Disappointing My Friend When I Criticize Her Writing

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Avoid Disappointing My Friend When I Criticize Her Writing, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I’d never speak to anyone else the way I speak to myself
  • If a friend told me what I’m beating myself up over, I’d know exactly what kind thing to say to them
  • Every time I point out what someone did wrong, they get defensive and dig in instead of actually hearing me
  • I’m being brutal with myself over how I handled something
  • If a friend told me they’d blown off this exact thing I’d be gentle and kind to them in a heartbeat, yet to myself I’m brutal

Practices that may help

  1. Replace critic monologue with compassionate self-talk
    Speak to yourself the way you would speak to a close friend in the same situation.
    Working With Your Inner Critic
  2. Compassionate Letter Writing
    Write a letter to yourself from the perspective of a wise, compassionate friend — about something you’ve been judging yourself for.
    Compassion-Focused Therapy: Calming the Inner Critic
  3. Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain
    Criticism puts people on the defensive and rarely produces lasting change.
    How to Win Friends and Influence People, Made Practical
  4. Write to yourself about your struggles as you would write to a close friend
    When you are struggling, write a paragraph to yourself from the perspective of a compassionate, wise friend who knows your situation.
    Expressive Writing (Pennebaker)
  5. Extend the compassion you would give a friend to yourself
    Ask what you would say to a capable friend who had delayed on the same task — then say that.
    Self-Forgiveness and Procrastination
  6. Give yourself advice as if advising a close friend
    Describe your problem as if a close friend brought it to you — then write the advice you would give them.
    Self-Distancing Journaling
  7. Apply self-kindness as actively as you would to a friend
    Treat yourself with the same warmth and understanding you would offer a close friend in the same situation.
    Self-Worth vs. Self-Esteem
  8. Compassionate letter to yourself
    Write to yourself from the voice of an unconditionally kind, wise friend.
    Self-Compassion, Made Practical
  9. Feedback: extract the signal, ignore the noise
    Seek feedback fast, but use the part that actually tells you how to improve.
    Ultralearning: Aggressive, Self-Directed Learning
  10. Adapt how you deliver feedback to the person’s style
    Deliver the same honest feedback in the form the other person can actually hear it.
    The Platinum Rule

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