Welcome to the third week of the program!
As before – this is an overview of what’s coming up for the week and explains how the tool for the week works.
The emphasis this week is on Assess – daily questions to investigate the accuracy of what the critic says. Because what the critic says is often exaggerated, unlikely, illogical – or just plan daft. You’ll be doing this in two different ways: with the question of the day, and with the week’s tool, which practices story rephrasing.
Focus of Week Three’s Questions – Assess for Cognitive Errors
The daily questions will focus on ‘cognitive errors’ – these are typical ways the critic is wrong about reality. Each day, you will be given a different cognitive error to think about. Look for examples of how you’ve seen this error happen with your own critic before.
For example – on the first day of week 3, the question will be about ‘negativity bias’, which means focusing on the negative and disregarding the positive. All you have to do to respond, is to come up with some examples where this has happened to you. Eg: overthinking bad feedback and ignoring praise; or saying “Anyone could have done it” and ignoring that you did something that was difficult for you.
Tool for Week Three – Story Rephrasing
You’ll investigate the accuracy of what the critic is saying, using a new Disarm tool – Story rephrasing.
What you’ll do is: pick an example of the critic attacking you from the last day or so, and reword or reassess what it’s saying. This could be the ‘cognitive error’ example, or something else.
For instance:
- You might rephrase it as you would to a child; or to a friend.
- You might use more accurate words – eg instead of “everyone will think I’m stupid“, you could say “the people in the meeting might realise that I don’t know offhand the answer to that specific question“.
- You might draw pictures of the critic’s version, and of a nicer version.
Try whatever you feel like from one day to the next; you might do it in the moment when you notice it, or at the end of the day – but do make a note of what you’ve done daily.
The important thing for the week is to practice challenging the critic’s wording. We tend to just emotionally react to what the critic is saying and feel bad. By assessing what the critic says, and deliberately using words that are more helpful, we let the critic feel heard; we can still use anything useful in what it says – and our brains and emotions get better at detaching from the negativity.