Self

Self-Compassion: Letting Go of the Need For Perfection

Connecting with yourself in a healthy way requires self-compassion or letting go of “The Need For Perfection”. Dr. Kristin Neff is widely known for her work in the field of self-compassion. She describes the core components of self-compassion as:

• Being  Kind to Ourselves

• Recognition of the shared human experience (the interconnected nature of our lives)

• ·Mindfulness

When we develop self-compassion, we can love ourselves, remain calm, and not react impulsively or defensively when we make mistakes, when we are challenged, or when we do not feel loved by others. Being kind to yourself is treating yourself like you would a good friend or loved one.

To expect perfection is a setup for disappointment; we win some battles and lose others. Accepting our losses, flaws, and imperfections helps us understand that failure is part of life and is how we learn. When you make a mistake, there is no need to make excuses, feel bad, or beat yourself up internally. Harsh criticism toward oneself or others will only reduce happiness and motivation. This is not to condone meritocracy, but experience teaches us that acceptance of humanity and compassion for self and others is much more helpful than the negative contributions of critical self-talk.

Of course, we always strive to be our best selves, and self-compassion is not a mental trick to let ourselves off the hook or excuse ourselves when we don't do the work. Mistakes are usually because we don’t think things through, we forget, get distracted, or get caught up in patterns of rumination. Most mistakes are due to our imperfect nature, not a lack of effort or desire.

It is okay to say we are human and allow ourselves to make mistakes, and understand that not all of our one hundred or so billion brain cells (neurons) do their job perfectly every day; a few million of them might get out of line occasionally, but this is only a small part of who we really are.

Self-compassion helps us accept imperfection in ourselves, others, and the world. Recognition of our common humanity allows us to be more accepting and tolerant of mistakes. It also helps us to be better parents, teachers, or partners and to be more tolerant and flexible when life does not go our way.

Self-Compassion and Change: Dr. Neff

Take care of yourself in a fun way that will replenish you and make you feel happier and healthier for the rest of your life.

If we want our habits to stick, we need to start small. It is hard for anyone to make big changes all at once. Creating a new habit or routine can take tremendous energy and focus, and we have only so much self-control in a given day to work with. It's much better to succeed at just one small thing at a time than it is to fail at bigger things or many things at once. Almost everyone can pull off a brilliant couple of days or weeks, but life is a marathon.

An anchor or a prompt for change can be a time of day, a different habitual behavior that comes right before your habit (such as a routine that precedes it), or even an emotion. For example, you may habitually pick at your nails when you feel anxious. Or, if you feel happy, you may habitually reach for your phone to take a picture. Emotions or thoughts often trigger behaviors.

If you have a habit that you want to eliminate, choose a trigger that occurs only when you want to do the habit. For example, a thirty-minute yoga video twice weekly isn't a habit. It's a to-do item for your task list because there's no clear trigger. But if you work only three days a week, you can use work as your trigger:” a thirty-minute yoga video every weekday as soon as you walk in the door from dropping the kids off at school.”

Relish the positive emotions that your new habit elicits. Be intentional about them, or “take in the good”, as Rick Hanson would say. For example, I tend to feel happiest on my walks when I consciously look up at the trees (rather than down at the trail, as I am inclined). When I look up at the trees, I tend to feel a warm, relaxing sense of awe spread over me.

Structure your environment to support your decision. Put your work shoes deep in your backpack and your walking shoes by the door.

Make a specific plan for what you will do when challenges arise because they will. If you wake up to find that it's raining, pre-decide that you’ll wear your blue rain jacket and take that huge golf umbrella your dad left in the closet.

Establishing a rule of no screen time after 9:00 p.m. might allow you to read more in the evening, spend more time with your husband and children, or talk to your child. All these things contribute to feelings of ease and happiness.

Making a specific action plan dramatically increases your chance of following through.

Research has shown that taking breaks, even brief ones, dramatically improves our performance and productivity. When we don’t take breaks, our focus and the quality of our work usually suffer. But when we do rest throughout the day, we can work much longer without the quality of our work or our focus suffering.

Start with something straightforward. You could do it every day with barely a thought. Think about doing one push-up instead of 15, meditating for only one minute, and replacing one unhealthy snack with pre-packaged carrots and hummus. Remember, this is about initiating the neural pathway in a way that doesn’t create resistance—you’ll be able to expand your habit later. Write out your slightly better-than-nothing habit below.”