After reading this article about how to praise children, it strikes me that the principle tested with regard to children is very similar to the principles of REBT which I've posted about before.

The basic concept is this: When thinking or speaking about the quality of a specific action, use specific words. No amount of specific language sums into general language, no matter what we're taught by grades and diplomas.

Another thing to be avoided in praising or criticizing is the use of superlatives (I think that's the term for both types of things I'm speaking of).

Compare the thought "I am not doing well at this task" with the thought "I never do well at this kind of task" with "I am not good at this kind of task". The word "never" clearly denotes an inability to change, clearly not productive. The general statement "am not good" assigns a value to the subject and people know that things do not change their values. The specific statement about the current task is simple to change, it has made no statement about the subject's abilities, only about their immediate actions and the subject is left with the obvious option to change those by the lack of an infinite time scale modifier.

What is non-obvious (at least to me) is why the same kind of helplessness that can be learned from general criticisms can be learned from general praise. It seems somewhat counterintuitive.

Perhaps it's simply a matter of the mind's ability to act based on the language presented. The specific types of statements convey much more actionable information in both cases. "I have made this good widget" puts one in a position to study the process and result that is good and attempt to duplicate it. "I am good at making widgets" does not convey anything specific to study or duplicate, you could study the last widget you made but is that the right one? You might ask, "what's good about my widgets?" The even more specific statement "this widget has good balance" provides even more actionable information.

The negative side of the same scenario is fairly obvious. "I am bad at making widgets" is not actionable. "Which widgets are bad?" and "Which aspects of my widgets are bad?" are two of the possible questions that one might ask in order to gain the information needed to fix the badness. In the absence of that information improvement is impossible.

It is definitely worth mentally changing your language. When you start to think "I can't X" simply replace "can't" with "don't". The two statements have the same immediate meaning, but when you use "don't", your mind is left with the option to change. When you start to think "I'm bad at X" think "I am doing X poorly". Again, same immediate meaning, but one is obviously changeable. You can also change "I never X" to "I haven't X" and a myriad of other enabling self-talk changes.