What would your best friend say about that?

How a basic question can make all the difference when we’re hard on ourselves.

My partner, Megan, is a therapist for ambitious young entrepreneurs and leaders. I often see some of her clients, too, as I help them take their “in session” learnings and apply them to their business.

The root stresses are often the same: feelings of faking it, not being enough, afraid of being loved as they are.

Countless times, she asks her clients a simple question that has enormous ripple impacts: “What would your best friend say about that?”

Because the truth is that we’re hard on ourselves. We blame ourselves. We don’t forgive ourselves. We develop narratives that we’re unlovable failures and these permeate everything we do, say and think.

Just now, I was stressing about how much there is to do and how little time I have. I then caught myself telling me that I am a failure.

Then I stopped and asked: “What would my best friend say about this?”

It sounds corny, I know. (Don’t tell her that). Even so, within a moment I stopped to breathe and reframe that despite the current struggle that I maybe don’t suck so much after all.

A simple tip with a big difference. That’s all, folks.