Self-compassion involves showing kindness and understanding to yourself when facing challenges or when you fail in life. Many athletes judge themselves or treat themselves poorly when things don’t go their way or when they don’t meet the high expectations they set for themselves. To be self-compassionate you must treat yourself like you would treat a friend or teammate when they are struggling. If your teammate made a mistake on the field you would never yell at them and tell them they are horrible and worthless, so you should never treat yourself that way either.
Kristen Neff, the leading self-compassion researcher and practitioner, discusses three main components of self-compassion: self-kindness vs. self-judgment, common humanity vs. isolation, and mindfulness vs. over-identification. The first, self-kindness vs. self-judgment, emphasizes the importance of being kind and understanding towards ourselves when we encounter adversity. Picture the best coach or captain you have had. How have they helped you and encouraged you through obstacles? The best leaders do not shame and judge others when mistakes are made, but instead encourage people to use it as an opportunity to learn and build resilience. We must act the same way towards ourselves in hard times because when we provide ourselves support through hard times rather than criticism it enables us to be in a better mental state to cope.
The second element of self-compassion, common humanity vs. isolation, encourages us to remember that failure and imperfection is part of the reality of being a human being and is a condition shared by all of us. Neff explains that when we fail, we often feel alone and isolated as if we were the only people to have ever experienced this kind of adversity. However, being human is to be inherently flawed. It is only once we practice acceptance of this fact that we can begin to work with it rather than fight against it. When we believe and accept this reality, we are able to let our suffering connect us rather than separate us from others, making it easier to cope and bounce back from adversity.
The third aspect of self-compassion, mindfulness vs. over-identification, is explained by Neff as the ability to take a balanced and mindful approach to difficult situations so that we don’t act like it is the worst thing that has ever happened to us, or the opposite, act like it didn’t happen or doesn’t exist. In adversity we often need to take a different perspective on the situation and practice acceptance in order to move forward in a healthy way. By accepting the reality of the situation, it allows us to be thoughtful rather than reactive to our emotions. When we are able to step outside the situation in this way, it keeps us from over-identifying with the problem or circumstance so that we can think and act in a more helpful way.
When facing a challenge in life or bouncing back from failure, it is critical that we are kind to ourselves, recognize struggle as a common aspect of humanity, and take a mindful approach to adversity. The more you practice this self-compassionate approach the more you will find that you can take risks in life and push yourself to your full potential because you aren’t afraid of your own emotional reactions to failure.
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