Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself!

Two common, yet debilitating, traits of high achievers and perfectionists are a highly self-critical inner narrative and a lack of self-compassion. For many, there is a false belief that showing compassion implies you’re losing your edge and becoming mediocre and complacent.

This inner critic manifests as being chronically disappointed by your performance, harshly judging each mistake, feeling envy toward others’ performances, being overly defensive of external criticism, and having overall lower self-esteem.

If that sounds familiar, you are probably your own worst critic and berate yourself over perceived mistakes. You’re not alone: Worldwide, it is estimated that 85% of people lack self-esteem.

How can you be kinder to yourself? It all starts with self-compassion—here’s what that means, and how you can build yours up, and keep it up.

What Is Self-Compassion?

The expressions “self-compassion” and “self-love” are often used interchangeably. However, the term self-love refers to a more overarching acceptance of who you are—flaws and strengths. Self-compassion is more about a specific event, showing empathy to yourself when you make an error.

Having self-compassion means you are able to speak toward yourself with kindness, to be honest with yourself without an inner harshness, and to understand, honor, and stand up for your needs while being willing to improve yourself. The willingness to grow and improve does not come from a place of lacking but from a place of self-acceptance and choice.

Once you develop self-compassion, you will find yourself improving in other areas of your life, with a greater self-awareness and motivation to improve. This compassionate mindset leads to feeling less defensive and prickly, making it easier to acknowledge any weaknesses and make amends for any mistakes, whether that’s criticism from your boss or an argument with your partner.

The High-Achiever Paradox

Being a high achiever or perfectionist might initially be seen as a strength—after all, it means you have a high desire to constantly push for more—but it becomes unsustainable in the long run.

You have a huge impetus to succeed, but if you keep rising the bar for success, you’re left with an ongoing feeling of never being enough, with a need to keep succeeding and desire for things to always be perfect.

Paradoxically, having self-compassion usually leads to achieving even greater results. Instead of being pushed by a feeling of lack, you become pulled by choice, passion, and energy. In the long run, this is better for both your mental health and your productivity.

In addition, as you gain self-compassion, you stop viewing your mistakes as personal flaws, and realize everyone makes them and they are part of our learning path.

Building Your Self-Compassion

If you’re recognizing yourself at this point, there is some good news: There are tools to help you increase your self-compassion.

1. Be Aware

   As with any behavioral or internal transformation, awareness is the first step. When it comes to greater self-compassion, awareness is three-fold:

   • Thoughts
     Start paying close attention to your inner dialogue and noticing what you are actually saying to yourself—you might be surprised.
     • Do you beat yourself up each time you make a mistake?
     • Do you constantly review all your errors and feel guilt or shame?
     • Do you feel angry each time you mess up?
     • Do you over-analyze speeches and conversations and then feel frustrated?
   • Actions
     Next, think about your actions and behaviors. Notice if you’re being kind to yourself physically.
     • Are you getting enough sleep?
     • Are you eating healthy foods?
     • Are you getting enough exercise or movement each day?

     These unhealthy choices create a vicious cycle: The unhealthier the behavior, the more guilt you feel, the lower your self-esteem, and the harsher your internal narrative.

   • Emotions
     Sometimes the lack of self-compassion can be felt in your energy toward yourself, not only in your thoughts. For instance, you might have overall feelings of guilt, shame, sadness, or disappointment in yourself.
     • Do you often feel a lingering disappointment in yourself or your work?
     • Do you feel shame for underperforming?
     • Do you carry heavy guilt about not being “enough”?

     Emotional responses can be more subtle to notice but as you raise your awareness, you will start to pick up on them too.

   Self-compassion is the ability to speak toward yourself with kindness, to be honest with yourself without an inner harshness, and to understand your needs.

2. Change the Dialogue

   Once you are more aware of your inner dialogue, physical actions, and emotions, you can start to change them.

   A useful exercise is to practice speaking to yourself as if you were your 5-year-old self, or a close friend. It might help to say such statements out loud.

   The practice goes like this: Let’s say you’ve given a speech, and you feel disappointed in your performance. First, you notice your thoughts: Wow, that was useless. I can’t believe I messed up like that. Then you realize this was the harsh inner voice showing up.

   It is key not to judge or criticize your internal voice! (That just continues the cycle of the internal critical voice.) Instead, take a deep breath and say/think:

   Okay, I notice there was a lack of compassion in my initial reaction. I feel disappointed that things didn’t go as well as I wanted them to, but I realize that I did my very best, and I hope next time it will go better.

   At first this will feel very unnatural; you likely have decades of pre-conditioning to overcome. Then it will start to gradually feel more natural. The cherry on the cake is not only will you start to feel better about yourself and your performance, you will also feel calmer and more grounded.

   Start changing your actions and emotions as well. To adjust your actions, try slowly implementing and sticking to one new healthy habit (e.g., going to bed earlier, exercising, etc.) to help rebuild self-trust and nurture self-compassion.

   Changing your emotions starts with noticing the initial inner guilt or heaviness, and shifting it toward gratitude (for the lesson learned), and joy (for experience, learning, and improvement).

3. Meditate

   Another powerful way to increase awareness of your thoughts, actions, and emotions, and actually rewire your way of thinking, is through meditation. Even just 10 minutes of sitting in silence each day and watching your thoughts can make a huge shift in your feelings and reactions toward yourself. By practicing regularly, you can soften that inner harshness and improve your self-compassion.

   Try sitting quietly and just paying attention to your breathing. You can imagine your thoughts as clouds in the sky just passing by. If you get frustrated or start dwelling on a thought or task, remind yourself it’s just a feeling, and think of a cloud floating away. Then simply go back to focusing on your breath.

   Loving-kindness is another remarkably effective meditation technique for increasing self-compassion. It involves directing peaceful thoughts toward other people and the world. You will feel yourself slowly relaxing as the kind and positive emotions flow through your brain.

4. Zoom Out

   All too often, we are zoomed in to our own world. Everything we do or think is exaggerated and amplified.

   This can make it challenging to evaluate our own performance objectively. Rather than obsessing over a mistake, zoom out and simply observe: What did you do well? What can you improve? What were some important lessons?

   Being less emotionally involved and attached to your performance reduces that inner critic, and helps you be more honest about both your strengths and your shortcomings.

   Remember, we are all imperfect, flawed human beings doing the best we can to navigate the world each day. You are not immune from imperfection. Sometimes things go wrong even when you’ve prepared, practiced, and tried your hardest. That’s all part of our human experience.

One of the greatest benefits of self-compassion is that you become more attuned to your own needs. You understand more deeply what you need and are able to communicate those needs with others. This also makes it easier for the people in your life, because you are clearer about what matters to you. As a result, you feel more ease, joy, and peace every day, with yourself and toward other people.

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