One of the conversations I have the most often with clients is around how to become more self-compassionate.
I hear them beating themselves up after not following their plan, or putting themselves down when they fell back into old patterns that don’t align with their goals. And I get it. Self-compassion doesn’t come naturally to me either.
It’s easy to get frustrated with ourselves, and think that telling ourselves things like “look at you, messing it all up again. Surely you should be better at this by now” or “stop being so lazy and undisciplined, it’s time to get serious” is going to get us motivated to take action.
And it might in the very (VERY) short-term, but it’s not a long-term strategy – it doesn’t lead to real change.
Self-compassion is an incredibly misunderstood topic. Most of us are brought up with beliefs that, if we want to be healthier, or more productive, or advance in our careers, we should be harder on ourselves, not kinder.
We equate self-kindness with complacency or letting ourselves off the hook.
Unfortunately, it’s this very belief that makes achieving our goals more challenging.
The main concept I try to remind clients of, and you reading this right now, is that self-compassion is a skill. It’s not something we have or don’t have, it’s something we can learn.
In this article I’m going to share why self-compassion is so important (according to science) and a few helpful strategies and tips on how to become more self-compassionate in your own life.
What is self-compassion?
Self-compassion is having your best interests in mind, both short-term and long-term. It’s speaking to yourself kindly, yes, but it’s also much more than that. Self-compassion is picking yourself back up in a constructive way when you make mistakes, rather than beating yourself up. It’s about making choices that serve you and align with your goals, rather than choosing the road of instant gratification and self-indulgence that leaves you feeling worse later on.
According to self-compassion researcher Dr. Kristin Neff, there are 3 parts to self-compassion:
1 – Self-kindness
Self-kindness involves speaking to yourself like you would speak to a friend. That means being kind, encouraging and understanding towards yourself rather than harsh and judgemental.
2 – Common humanity
Common humanity means we understand that our experience is part of the universal human experience. We are not alone in our suffering or our mistakes.
3 – Mindfulness
Mindfulness involves the ability to observe your thoughts and experience without judgement. It’s being able to acknowledge what’s happening in the moment, without reacting to it or avoiding our experience.
Understanding these 3 parts really helped me conceptualise what it truly means to be self-compassionate.
Why is it important to develop self-compassion
Despite our general skepticism, the research is pretty clear that being more self-compassionate is helpful for many areas of life, particularly behaviour change.
Think about it like this…
Picture a close friend or family member. They have a favour to ask of you, they want you to do something for them.
They approach you and say, “I want you to help me move house today. I don’t care if you’re feeling tired or stressed from work, you haven’t been helping at all lately so this needs to happen now. Stop being so lazy all the time, why can’t you be more disciplined? Some physical activity would be good for you anyway, I mean look at you, you’re not getting any younger and you’re a mess.”
Now let’s press pause…
If you had a loved one say that to you, how would you feel?
Tense? Hurt? Angry? Stressed or anxious? Guilty? Shameful?
Yeah, me too.
Would you be likely to genuinely want to help them in this instance? Or would you want to tell them to get stuffed? (whether you actually would or not is irrelevant)
Yet we talk to ourselves like this most days, particularly when it comes to building healthy habits.
We try to discipline ourselves into working out more often, and call ourselves lazy when we don’t do it.
We try to force ourselves to only eat healthy, and we put ourselves down when we make a different choice in the moment.
What we don’t realise is that guilt and shame are not effective motivators. In fact, they often do the opposite.
Self-compassion, on the other hand, is a more effective motivator in many cases.
Research shows that becoming more self-compassionate can help us:
- engage in healthy eating behaviours more often (and therefore lose weight, if we want to)
- overthink and worry less (less rumination)
- self-regulate better (self-regulation is the ability to control our behaviours, emotions, and thoughts)
- reduce anxiety
- reduce stress
- and feel better about our lives in general (research shows a small effect here, as many other factors come into play with life satisfaction, but it’s still significant)
Not only does self-compassion lead to improvements in these areas, but it also leads to long-term improvements in these areas. In some cases, the improvements even compound over time and keep improving.
Although more research is needed, the current evidence is promising.
Let’s go back to our example from earlier.
Imagine if your friend said this instead:
“If you’re up for it, I’d really appreciate your help moving house today. I understand you might be feeling tired and stressed from work, so if you can only help a little bit (or not at all) that’s ok too. It will be fun to catch up and get some activity in too! But know that I still appreciate and care about you either way. If today doesn’t work for you, maybe we can go for a walk together tomorrow.”
I know I would be more likely to genuinely want to help that person.
Imagine if you started to talk to yourself like that?
Do you think you might be more likely to go to the gym if you framed it that way, and allowed yourself to adjust the intensity/duration of the session based on your needs?
Would you be more likely to make a better food choice, from a place of genuinely wanting to care for your body rather than beating yourself up?
In the short-term, our immediate reaction might be that if we’re too nice to ourselves we’d never do anything and we’d let ourselves off the hook. This belief is something that can stop many of us from pursuing self-compassion, despite all the benefits.
Why is self-compassion so hard?
Self-compassion is not complacency
One reason self-compassion is so hard are old, false beliefs we carry around.
We equate self-compassion with being complacent, and we think we would do nothing all the time if we “let” ourselves be less strict. This is often a belief passed down through generations when mental health and self-care was less prioritised and much less talked about.
But here’s the thing…
Most people who have that mindset actually aren’t doing the behaviours they want to be doing. They keep beating themselves up in the hope that one day their harsh words will materialise into motivation…but it’s not going to happen.
Self-compassion is not self-indulgence.
Let’s think again about how you would treat a friend or a loved one. If they sat there on the couch watching TV and eating pizza 24/7, do you think they would feel genuinely happy and fulfilled in their life? Are they engaging in these behaviours because they’re so happy and love their life? Or are these behaviours a convenient way to opt out of a life they don’t love?
Would you tell your friend, who you know isn’t happy, to keep doing what they’re doing?
OR, would you perhaps approach them, from a place of caring about them and their happiness, and offer to help, knowing they just need a little extra love and support right now to get through this.
Human beings are not happy or fulfilled when they do nothing and have no purpose. We might love pizza, but we won’t love how pizza makes us feel after eating it for 10 days in a row.
Self compassion is not about instant gratification, but about being able to recognise what would really benefit you (including your pursuit of future goals) in the moment.
There’s a difference between opting out of life, and making choices from a place of self-compassion. The self-compassionate choice doesn’t let you opt out, it gently reminds you you’re destined for more and that you’re capable of turning things around.
The self-compassionate choice puts self-care first, it thinks of a balance between your needs in the moment, and your long-term goals.
It’s about encouragement, not neglect.
Sounds like the opposite of complacency to me.
Self-compassion requires tangible strategies
The other reason self-compassion can be hard is that it’s not exactly tangible. It feels a bit airy fairy, especially how most people talk about it.
I avoided self-compassion for years because I didn’t really know what it meant, and I certainly didn’t know how to “be more self-compassionate”.
Like, do I just stand in front of the mirror and say I love myself? (I later learned this is not what you have to do, thankfully.)
If you feel similar, I totally understand.
In a second I’m going to share some concrete strategies for you to get started with self-compassion.
But first, if you’re thinking that you’re not the self-compassionate type…
Can self-compassion be learned?
Self-compassion is a skill. That means yes, it can be learned. This idea is supported by the current evidence.
If you currently don’t know how to be self-compassionate, or you think you’re “not the type”, with the right strategies and practice you can become more self-compassionate (and reap all the benefits this skill brings!)
Think of self-compassion like a language. It’s something we all need to learn. Some people are more fluent than others, but with practice most of us can learn how to speak well.
3 strategies to become more self-compassionate
1 – Journaling
There are so many journaling techniques we can use to become more self-compassionate. Writing about our experiences, our thoughts, and our feelings is incredibly powerful when it comes to building our self-compassion muscle.
One journaling technique involves writing a letter to yourself from the perspective of a friend or family member who cares for you deeply.
Think about a situation where you are normally critical or judgemental of yourself. Maybe it’s when you make unhealthy food choices, or skip your workouts. Or maybe it’s when you make a mistake at work.
Now write a letter to yourself in the words of a loved one. What would they say to you when you tell them what happened? How would they comfort you? How might they encourage you to move forward?
Remember, your friend is concerned with your long-term health and happiness, not feeling sorry for you or encouraging unhelpful self-indulgence.
You can repeat this exercise as often as you want to. This letter is also something you can come back to in those moments you need it the most.
Sometimes the act of writing and thinking ahead of time means we’ll be better prepared in the future to use self-compassion in the moment.
2 – Identify unhelpful thoughts and reframe them
Self-compassion has a lot to do with our thinking patterns. Those of us who tend to have perfectionist tendencies, a harsh inner-critic, and catastrophising thoughts (e.g., assuming the worst) often haven’t yet built the skill of self-compassion.
Becoming more self-compassionate starts with being aware of our current thoughts. We can build awareness through journaling (writing down our thoughts) or simply by trying to notice and acknowledge them more often.
We need to understand we are not our thoughts. We have thoughts, but they are not facts of the world.
After becoming more aware of our thoughts, we can start working towards reframing them into more self-compassionate thoughts.
Writing down a list of your most common unhelpful thoughts that come up, and then writing an alternative, more helpful thought for each one, is a great tangible strategy to start changing your thought patterns.
For example, if you often think “I messed everything up, why can I never get it right?”
You could reframe this to “I made a mistake, which is normal. Everyone makes mistakes. How might I approach this differently next time?“
Next time you find yourself agonising over a mistake, you can come back to your list and remind yourself there’s a more helpful way to think about this.
3 – Mindfulness and breathing practices
Mindfulness is one of the three components of self-compassion because it’s crucial to be able to observe and acknowledge our experiences without judgement.
Using guided mindfulness and breathing practices can help us get better at doing this.
I love the app Headspace for this, but there are also plenty of free Youtube videos or other apps to try.
I also recommend Dr. Kristen Neff’s resources if you’re interested in actively practicing the skill of becoming more self-compassionate.
Self-compassion is required for long-term behaviour change
My attitude towards myself and my perspective on life as a whole, changed dramatically when I was able to be more self-compassionate.
I’m still not perfect. I still judge myself sometimes. I still get frustrated at myself when I make choices in the moment.
But you know what? That’s called being human.
There’s no point beating ourselves up for making mistakes, especially when making mistakes is required for success. It’s how we learn and grow.
Changing our behaviour is a learning process.
Eating better, exercising more, sleeping better, being more productive…we can only achieve these things when we seek to change through a lens of self-compassion.
Our lives don’t automatically get better when we start eating healthier or getting more done.
Our lives can only get better when we start to think better thoughts, treat ourselves better, and feel like we are contributing towards bigger goals and a greater purpose.
Harsh criticism and judgement will only get you more of what you don’t want – a life that still doesn’t feel very good.
If you want more happiness and fulfilment in your life, becoming more self-compassionate is the most effective path forward.
When we have our best interests in mind, and when we genuinely care about ourselves, we naturally start wanting to make better choices.
