Clarify what your resentment is costing you and what you want instead, using a structured, coach‑tested reflection grounded in real-life scenarios.
This worksheet moves through what you're carrying, what it's costing you, and what moving forward might look like - would you be open to working through it on your own and bringing what comes up into our next conversation?
A professional describes a current challenge — a difficult relationship, a stalled project, a leadership decision that didn't go their way — and in the description, references to a past event keep surfacing. They mention it as context but it's clearly still active. They haven't examined how much of their available attention is occupied by something they consider resolved. The inventory table in Section 1 makes what's being carried concrete.
Frame as a bandwidth audit rather than a forgiveness exercise. 'What I want to understand is how much of your current capacity is occupied by things from the past — not to judge whether that's reasonable, but to make the cost visible. The first section is just an inventory: what happened, how it affected you, what you're still holding. Once we can see it, we can decide what to do with it.' The bandwidth framing is more accessible for professionals than any framing that centers the concept of forgiveness.
Watch Section 2 — the cost assessment — for the 'how it shows up in my behavior' field. For clients who are unaware of how much something is still affecting them, this field is often the most revealing. They know it bothers them; they may not have named how it shows up in current decisions, current conversations, current relationships. If the behavioral description includes current professional contexts, that's worth examining directly.
Start with the energy ratings in Section 2. 'Look at these numbers. If you add them together — that's how much of your available capacity these items are drawing on. Does that match how you'd describe your available bandwidth right now?' The aggregate makes visible what individual items obscure. Then: 'For the highest-rated item — what specifically would change in your current work if that number dropped by half?'
If Section 1 contains items from more than three years ago at high energy ratings, the resentment is not incidental. Severity: moderate. Resentment that persists at high intensity over years is worth examining more carefully: what specifically keeps it active, what function it serves (protection, identity, narrative), and whether this is work that coaching can address adequately or whether other support would be appropriate to explore.
A professional can describe, in sophisticated terms, why a past event no longer needs to occupy their attention. They understand that resentment is costly, that holding on doesn't change what happened, and that moving forward is in their interest. They have said they've forgiven the situation. Their behavior — how they talk about the person involved, how they approach related situations, what decisions they make — suggests otherwise. The tool works at the level the intellectual understanding hasn't reached.
Name the gap without making it pathological. 'You've done the intellectual work on this — you know the case for moving forward. What we're going to do with this tool is work at a different level: not the argument for letting go but the actual cost, the specific behavior, the concrete step. The intellectual understanding gets you to the decision to let go. This gets you through it.' The distinction between deciding and doing is usually recognizable to analytically oriented clients.
Watch Section 3 — self-forgiveness — for this client specifically. Clients who are intellectually ready to move forward but haven't done so often have something in Section 3 that they haven't examined: a role they played, a decision they made, a way they contributed to what happened. The forgiveness work that's been delayed may be less about the other party and more about the client's own judgment or behavior. The friend reframe in Section 3 is diagnostic here.
Start with Section 4's 'one step I can take' column. 'Read me the step you wrote for the highest-energy item.' Then: 'On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to take that step in the next week?' For clients who have been intellectually committed but behaviorally stuck, the likelihood question surfaces whether the step named is actually one they'll take or whether it's an aspiration. If the number is below 7, explore what specifically is in the way.
If Section 3 is left blank or nearly blank — the client moves through Sections 1, 2, and 4 but skips the self-forgiveness section — the omission is often the most important piece. Severity: low to moderate depending on the situation. Ask directly: 'What would go in this section if you wrote what's actually true rather than what sounds right?' The answer to that question often contains what's keeping the client stuck.
A professional who holds themselves to exacting standards has been working through a significant mistake, failure, or professional setback. They understand what went wrong, have done the analysis, and have taken corrective action. They continue to hold the event against themselves in a way that is no longer productive — it shows up as ongoing self-criticism, reluctance to take comparable risks, and difficulty fully engaging in current work. Section 3 of the tool is the primary intervention point.
Position Section 3 as the center of the exercise for this client, not a subsection. 'The first two sections are context — we need to name what happened and what it cost. But the work for you is in Section 3: the friend reframe. When you read back what you've written about what happened, how does the judgment you're applying to yourself compare to what you would say to someone you care about in the exact same situation?' That question, asked before the tool is completed, frames the whole exercise.
Watch whether the 'what I would say to a close friend' response in Section 3 is genuinely warmer than how the client has been treating themselves, or whether they hold even hypothetical friends to the same standard. Clients with high self-criticism sometimes produce friend responses that are only marginally kinder: 'I'd tell them they made a mistake and should learn from it.' That response indicates the standard is so deeply held that even the perspective shift doesn't move it much. Note that and explore it.
Read the client's 'something I blame myself for' and their 'what I would say to a close friend' responses back to them. 'You wrote this about yourself. You wrote this about someone you care about. Read them both. What do you notice?' The contrast, read aloud, often produces a recognition that the self-criticism doesn't survive contact with the standard the client applies to others. Then: 'What would it mean to apply the same reasoning to yourself — not just intellectually, but actually?'
If the self-blame item in Section 3 describes a single decision or event from years ago that the client has been carrying at high intensity — and the 'friend' response they wrote is clearly wiser and more compassionate than how they've treated themselves — but the client reports that reading it back doesn't shift anything, the self-criticism may have an identity function that goes beyond the specific event. Severity: moderate. Consider whether this pattern is worth exploring with a different kind of support alongside coaching.
A client wants to understand where their emotional intelligence is strong and where it breaks down
LifeClient describes feeling 'bad' or 'off' but cannot name the emotion with any specificity
LifeA client wants a simple daily check-in they'll actually stick to
