If your friend stood you up for a night on the town, would you forgive them immediately and allow your friend to explain what happened? Or would you hold a grudge and start thinking they don’t like you or devising negative thoughts that you did something to cause the no-show?

If you made the same mistake with your friend, would you like your friend to show compassion and try to understand what happened? What would you do? Beat yourself up for days, or are you able to reason that it was a mistake or something happened? Perhaps a text or phone call could help alleviate any anxiety as communication skills are the key to communicating how you feel to resolve any resentment that could come up. The ability to understand your mistakes in life is self-compassion.

Do you give more consideration to others when they make mistakes than you do for yourself? If you do, you must evaluate your self-compassion, as it significantly impacts your mental well-being.

You Can Have Good Self-Esteem but No Self-Compassion

Self-esteem is about how you feel about yourself. It’s a sense of confidence and pride in your abilities, achievements, and qualities. You might think of people with high self-esteem as being confident and booming, while those with low self-esteem are shy or insecure.

Self-compassion is different; it’s not about how you feel about yourself at all—it’s all about how you treat yourself. Self-compassion involves treating yourself kindly when things go wrong (or even when they don’t). So, there is no need to be perfect to be compassionate toward yourself—you’re as worthy of love if you make mistakes or fail at something!

Self-Compassion Is the Ability to Be Understanding Toward Yourself

Self-compassion is the ability to be understanding toward yourself, especially when you’re feeling pain or struggling. It’s not self-indulgence; it’s not self-pity; it’s not self-flagellation. Instead, it means that you are kind and gentle with yourself when you face difficult circumstances or make mistakes. But why is this important?

It turns out that being self-compassionate helps people feel less alone in their suffering, which provides relief from anxiety and depression. It also helps them take constructive action to solve problems—which makes sense because feeling connected and supported by others can help us do better at work!

Instead of Being Overly Critical of Yourself, Be Kind to Yourself

Most people think that the key to success is having high self-esteem, but a growing body of research suggests the exact opposite: compassion is more important than self-esteem. Self-compassion is about being kinder toward yourself and recognizing that everyone struggles with difficult emotions at some point in life.

Instead of being overly critical of yourself when you fail or make mistakes, recognize that failure happens to everyone, including you! Instead of indulging in sadness or feeling bad about yourself after a tough day at work or a hard breakup with your partner, be kinder toward yourself by understanding that it’s OK to suffer sometimes!

Instead of Indulging in Sadness, Recognize That Suffering Happens to All of Us

Instead of indulging in sadness, recognize that suffering happens to every one of us. It is a part of being human and part of the flow of life. One day you will be on top, and the next day you will feel like your whole world has crumbled and you have nothing left. But this is OK! It’s not about how much good or bad has happened in your life but how you respond to those events as they arise.

To Build Your Self-Compassion, Stop Being Critical of Yourself

Start by being kind to yourself.

You are often your worst critic, and you don’t realize it until someone else points it out. The way you talk to yourself is not always supportive. It’s essential to recognize how important it is the thoughts about yourself and make a conscious effort to be kinder in your thoughts towards yourself, even when things don’t go the way you want them to, or you make mistakes. You are human! Everyone makes mistakes sometimes; everyone has setbacks; suffers from anxiety or fear at some point in life—and that’s OK!

Stop being so critical of yourself.

Being critical rarely leads anywhere positive—especially when it comes from within yourself instead of from other people who may legitimately have something different than good intentions for us as a person with potential value beyond what you see reflected at us through our work or achievements (or lack thereof). Being critical doesn’t allow room for growth because there isn’t any space left over after all those unkind words have taken up residence inside your headspace; there’s no room left over for anything else besides self-judgmental thoughts like “I should’ve done better” or “Why am I so bad at XYZ?,” which won’t do anything except keep you stuck where you are right now instead of helping build resilience against future challenges that might come along later down the road when they inevitably do happen again (because they will!). By knowing how much time each day has been dedicated to accomplishing personal goals vs. how much time was spent criticizing yourself about something that you did wrong earlier today.”

Some practical ways that you can help you boost your self-compassion today

If you’re struggling to be kind to yourself, there are more than a few ways that you can help yourself today. Here are some of the ways that experts recommend:

Write a letter to yourself. “This helps people get in touch with their feelings in a safe place,” says Dr. Germer. “It also allows them to express emotions they may not otherwise have.”

Talk to yourself in a kind tone of voice when you’re alone or driving, and no one else can hear your thoughts (or at least pretend that they don’t). “If you treated our friends like you treat yourself, it would be pretty shocking,” Dr. Germer points out—and this is why it’s so vital for you to remember how crucial self-compassion is!

Developing a mantra or saying can help remind you how much we deserve love, acceptance, and kindness from others—and ourselves as you are. Some common mantras include: “Be kind” or simply saying repeatedly ‘I am lovable.’ You could also try something more specific like ‘I am beautiful’ if self-esteem issues are what’s holding you back from being amicable towards yourself.”

The Bottom Line

In conclusion, self-compassion is a powerful tool. It helps you let go of negative thoughts, allowing you to take action and make the changes you want in your life. When it comes to building self-esteem, remember it doesn’t matter if you feel good about yourself or not; what matters is how you treat yourself throughout life. So go ahead, treat yourself with love and kindness today!

I hope you’ve found this article helpful! Feel free to comment below with your thoughts about this article and share it on social media. XOXO Mary