Coaching practices for Killingsworth Gilbert
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Killingsworth Gilbert, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’m staring at a choice where the smart, strategic move and the right thing to do point in different directions, and I keep trying to find the angle where doing good also wins
- I’m either anxious or chasing the next thing, full stop
- I find an apartment, a job, a plan that genuinely meets my needs, and instead of committing I keep looking
- I’m weighing a choice and I notice I’m only asking what’s best for me, then quietly building a clever story for why that’s also fine for everyone
- This problem is so knotty and interdependent that every time we brainstorm it, the room just locks onto whoever framed it first, and half the disagreement is really people picturing entirely different versions of the same mess.
Practices that may help
- Continuing Bonds in Grief, Made Practical
Continuing bonds theory, developed by Dennis Klass and colleagues, holds that maintaining an ongoing inner relationship with the deceased — through memory, ritual, and internalised connection — is a normal and often adaptive part of grief, not a sign of pathology. Observational research supports this for many types of connection, though some forms (active searching, idealisation) are associated with poorer outcomes. - Know your two selves (Adam I and Adam II)
Distinguish the self that wants to build and achieve from the self that wants to be good.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical
William Worden’s Tasks of Mourning reframes grief not as a passive set of stages to endure but as four active tasks: accepting the reality of the loss, processing the pain, adjusting to the changed world, and finding an enduring connection with the deceased. The task model is widely used in clinical grief work, though formal RCT evidence for the framework as a whole is limited — it remains an influential clinical model rather than a rigorously trialled protocol. - The Three-Circle Model: Mapping Your Emotional Systems
Understand your threat, drive, and soothing systems — and learn which is overactive in your life.
Compassion-Focused Therapy: Calming the Inner Critic - Satisficing vs. Maximizing: When “Good Enough” Wins
Satisficing — a term coined by Herbert Simon — means choosing the first option that meets your criteria, while maximizing means searching for the best possible option. Research by Barry Schwartz and colleagues found that people who habitually maximize tend to make objectively slightly better choices yet report lower satisfaction, more regret, and worse well-being — so for most everyday decisions, "good enough" wins. - Forgiveness: The REACH Model
Everett Worthington’s REACH model walks forgiveness through five steps — Recall the hurt, Empathize with the offender, give an Altruistic gift of forgiveness, Commit to it, and Hold on when the resentment returns. It targets emotional forgiveness (replacing bitterness with more neutral or positive feeling), not excusing the act, and its structured workbooks have been tested in controlled trials and meta-analyzed with real, if modest, effects. - Satisfice: set a good-enough threshold and stop searching when you hit it
Optimize for "good enough" rather than "best possible" — the search cost often exceeds the gain.
Simple Heuristics: Gerd Gigerenzer’s Case for Fast and Frugal Thinking - Terror Management Theory, Made Practical
Terror management theory (TMT), developed by Greenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomon from Ernest Becker’s work, holds that awareness of mortality is a pervasive driver of human motivation: people buffer death anxiety by bolstering self-esteem and embracing cultural worldviews that promise symbolic or literal immortality. Hundreds of experiments support the core "mortality salience" effect, though its real-world magnitude and the best personal response remain debated. - Test your actions against the common good
Ask whether what you’re about to do serves or damages the common good — not just your interests.
Sympatheia — the Stoic Practice of Universal Interconnection - Use morphological analysis for wicked problems with many interdependencies
The method shines on problems too complex for brainstorming to cover adequately.
Morphological Analysis, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Ideality Thinking
Describe the perfect outcome as if the solution already exists and costs nothing, then work backward to what could enable it.
Define the ideal final result first
- Barry Schwartz Maximizing
Satisficing — a term coined by Herbert Simon — means choosing the first option that meets your criteria, while maximizing means searching for the best possible option. Research by Barry Schwartz and colleagues found that people who habitually maximize tend to make objectively slightly better choices yet report lower satisfaction, more regret, and worse well-being — so for most everyday decisions, "good enough" wins.
- Connection And Mortality
Strong social ties are one of the most consistent predictors of longevity — comparable in effect size to not smoking.
Invest in a face-to-face social community
- Good Enough
Enough is a present-moment recognition, not a permanent ceiling on ambition.
Separate "enough" from "settling"
- Good Enough Decision Making
Set a "good enough" threshold before you search, then stop when you hit it.
Adopt satisficing instead of maximizing
- Good Enough Decisions
Set a "good enough" threshold before you search, then stop when you hit it.
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