Mountain North Coaching & Consulting | Dr. Tyler Gerdin, PsyD, ABPP
I’ve found myself asking the same question in two very different sessions: the therapy room and the executive coaching suite.
In psychotherapy, we talk about metacognition — the capacity to step back and observe your own thinking. It’s a higher-order cognitive skill, one that researchers like Flavell (1979) first described as “cognition about cognition” — the ability to monitor, evaluate, and redirect your own mental processes rather than simply being swept along by them. Decades of research have since confirmed what clinicians see daily: when people develop genuine metacognitive awareness, outcomes improve. They make better decisions, regulate emotion more effectively, and break free from the ruminative loops that keep them stuck.
In the coaching world, we often use different language — perceptual coaching, perspective-taking, reframing. But underneath the different vocabulary, we’re doing something remarkably similar: helping people step outside their immediate frame of reference and see their situation from a wider vantage point.
It’s not just people struggling with low self-worth who need this intervention. Highly capable people — executives, physicians, founders, seasoned professionals — consistently underestimate themselves in moments that matter. Not across the board. Not as a stable personality trait. But situationally. When it’s time to set a boundary. Have the difficult conversation. Make the bold call. Step into the role they’ve clearly earned.
In those moments, something happens. The internal critic gets louder. Confidence quietly exits the room. And almost without fail, there’s an underlying assumption — half-conscious, rarely examined — that someone else would handle this better.
This is precisely where the research on self-distancing becomes clinically and practically relevant. Kross and Ayduk (2017), whose work on self-distancing is among the most robust in contemporary psychology, found that when people reflect on their experiences from a psychologically distanced perspective — rather than from the inside of their emotional experience — they reason more clearly, experience less reactivity, and make more adaptive decisions. The mechanism is essentially metacognitive: psychological distance interrupts the “hot,” egocentric processing that narrows our thinking, and activates the cooler, more integrative reasoning we use when we’re not the ones at stake.
Which brings me to the question.
“If a trusted friend were in this exact situation — what would you tell them to do?”
Something shifts almost immediately when I ask it. The fog clears. The answer comes faster, cleaner, with more conviction. The wisdom that was available all along suddenly becomes accessible.
When we imagine advising a trusted friend, something important becomes available to us:
Our wisdom — without our fear. Our values — without our self-doubt. Our courage — without our internal critic narrating our inadequacy in real time. I have found that people often forget that we’re allowed to apply that same clarity to ourselves.
This metacognitive shift — what researchers call “decentering” — fosters a broader awareness of our mental events as subjective and transient, rather than as fixed truths about who we are or what we’re capable of. In plain language: the story you’re telling yourself in the heat of the moment is not the whole story.
I’ve come to see this pattern across both therapy and coaching: people are often far more capable of wise judgment than they are of self-trust. The discernment is already there. Once this insight shows up, courage to take actions becomes a bit easier.
So here’s the invitation. The next time you’re stuck, hesitant, or quietly second-guessing — pause. Ask the question.
“If my trusted friend were here — what would I tell them to do?”
Then, gently but firmly, consider taking your own advice.
Clarity. Character. Influence. — Dr. Tyler A. Gerdin, PsyD, ABPP Mountain North Coaching & Consulting
