It’s all too common in mental performance work to see individuals who are overly harsh on themselves. The saying, “you’re your own harshest critic,” and others alike, do have some truth to them. Really, this is part of having a brain. Our brain has a built-in negativity bias, and it loves to self-reference. What that means is it’ll often tend to negative things, and in tandem, negative things about the self. Nice.
One thing I’ll note is that each of us already has our own way of working with these kinds of harsh thoughts. We all have this skill, every one of us. We’ve created systems, or schemas: cognitive frameworks that help us to interpret information and respond in such moments. Knowing this begs the question: how many of us are training our cognitive, behavioral, and emotional systems to assist us away from unhelpful trains of thought, in the moment?
If you’re interested in adding to this skill set and in being less harsh on yourself, give this a try.
Self-Compassion, or, “not being a jerk to yourself.”
Being kind to yourself, or exercising self-compassion, is a level up. Building this takes a set of skills that, unfortunately, isn’t taught at the universal level. Hopefully the field of performance psychology and us as practitioners within can help to shift this norm.
Self-compassion is learning to be skilled in the way that you relate to yourself. It’s learning to skillfully implement kindness and care in the way that you understand yourself. If you’re a self-compassionate person, then it’s likely your inner climate is conditioned to gravitate toward relating to yourself in a caring way. Your self-talk, behaviors, and emotional responses are conditioned to gravitate toward a compassionate response.
Kindness, both toward self and toward others, is a trainable skill, and it’s the ultimate emotional resilience tool.
Mindful Self-Compassion
Leaders in this space added mindfulness into the mix, categorizing this subfield as Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), a psychological construct and lifelong practice that is composed of the following pillars:
Self-Kindness - being understanding and caring toward yourself. Becoming your own best friend.
Mindfulness - nonjudgmentally observing thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and experiences with curiosity and presence of mind.
Common Humanity - we’re all human and we all suffer. We all experience anger, sadness, anxiety, frustration, fear, grief, you name it. At least we’re in it together.
Credit for many of these understandings comes from the work and research of Dr. Kristin Neff, Dr. Christopher Germer, and Dr. Amy Baltzell, among others.
A Quick Shout Out
Image: Center for MSC
The Center for Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC)
“The purpose of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion is to alleviate human suffering and to improve the collective well-being of our world through the practice of self-compassion.” The research and work that they do allows us all to have access to evidence-based tools that we can use to train our minds and co-create a compassionate world. Bookmark and check out these meditations that they’ve shared at no cost.
Some Impactful Ways to be Kind to Others in the World
Lend some of your attention. Once you have spare time and you’ve checked off your own self-care boxes (key), give a friend a call or write them a letter with no intention other than to check in and see how they’re doing. Offering space to listen to a friend who may be experiencing something difficult exercises this point, too.
Visit a small local business or minority-owned business for your next purchase. Leave a positive review online to make this piece even more special.
Smile. It’s easy enough.
Some Impactful Ways to be Kind to Yourself
Exercise the mindful self-compassion loop. Check out this video by Dr. Amy Baltzell that leaves the viewer with an in-the-moment tool that you can use during moments of self-critique or high stress.
Take a moment to slow down and imagine how proud your younger self would be of where you are right now. This one can get emotional. Life isn’t easy, and it isn’t predictable, but you’re here now and you’ve made it through the trials that life has thrown your way. What kind words would your younger self say to you right now?
Clean up the self-talk. We could all empty the trash here. Cut the crap everyone (+ me). Become your own best friend. Champion yourself, take a breath to acknowledge your wins when they happen, and design your inner climate to be a positive and supportive one. No one can do this but you.
In Sum
The idea is to train kindness in a way that translates into compassionate behavior and actions that make both your inner and outer world a caring place. The more reps you put in, and the more you can find ways to weave kindness into your life in ways that work for you, the more skilled you will become.
Look for moments in your life where these reps can fit and see what happens for yourself. These tools have certainly changed my life for the better.
Stay well,
Mike
Thank you for this post, Mike. It’s all too easy to get caught up in negative self-talk, and we don’t always notice the impact it can have on ourselves and those close to us. I’m going to keep training my kindness skill and see where it takes me.