BYOBF

So what is BYOBF? It stands for Be Your Own Best Friend. Sounds like a great idea, but how does it work? I’m so glad you asked!

Let’s say you applied for a job but you didn’t get it. This has happened to just about everyone (including me) and it’s pretty rough. We can feel pretty discouraged and hurt, and start to think things like “I’m just not good enough”, or “I’ll never find a good job!” (you know you’ve done this!).

But would you say that to a friend who didn’t get a job they had applied for? No, of course not! You would probably say something to your friend like “you are perfectly qualified for the job (if you know this to be true) but they just went another way” and “of course you’ll get a job, that just wasn’t the right one for you”, or maybe even “there’s another job out there that you’ll like even better!”.

So why do we say these nice things to our friend? We usually want to say something encouraging to our friend so they’ll keep trying. And we can see that the discouraging thoughts are often just not realistic or true. So why don’t we just naturally

say encouraging and realistic things to OURSELVES? I don’t know either!

So the next time you’re feeling discouraged about something, think about what you would say to a friend who was in that same situation. Then say those things to yourself!