Coaching practices for Treat Yourself Like a Friend

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Treat Yourself Like a Friend, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

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

• If a friend told me they’d failed like this I’d be warm and understanding in a heartbeat, but I turn on myself with a cruelty I’d never aim at anyone I love
• I’d never speak to anyone else the way I speak to myself
• I bend over backwards to be fair to everyone else and then quietly leave myself out of the equation entirely
• If a friend brought me this exact dilemma I’d know in two seconds what they should do, but stuck inside my own version I just go in circles
• I’ll bend over backwards for everyone else, but the idea of being that gentle with myself feels selfish

Practices that may help

1. 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
2. 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
3. Be Fair: include yourself in the fairness you extend to others
   Apply the same standards of fairness to yourself that you would to someone you respect.
   FAST: DBT’s Skill for Maintaining Self-Respect in Relationships
4. 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
5. Include acts of kindness toward yourself
   The kindness architecture that builds well-being includes self-directed kindness — not just other-directed.
   Acts of Kindness, Made Practical
6. Tend to yourself before tending to others
   Sustainable tend-and-befriend requires that the caregiver’s own basic needs are met — otherwise helping depletes rather than regulates.
   Tend-and-Befriend, Made Practical
7. Self-kindness: offer yourself what a good friend would
   Say the words a caring friend would say — to yourself, now.
   The Self-Compassion Break
8. Treating friendship as the most essential pleasure
   Invest in the quality of a small number of close friendships as your primary wellbeing strategy.
   Epicurean Philosophy: Practical Happiness
9. 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
10. 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

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.