5 Habits That Will Make You Have More Self-Compassion

How You Can Practice Being Kinder to Yourself and Others

5 min readMar 31, 2020

When you have more self-compassion, the relationship you have with yourself will change. You will be kinder to yourself, which will also reflect how you treat others.

The challenge is making self-compassion a regular practice. If you are like most people, you judge and criticise yourself a lot, therefore knowing how to be kinder or nicer to yourself will make a big difference.

What is Self-Compassion?

Self-compassion refers to giving yourself the same kindness you give others. It is an expression of self-care and self-love.

When you see someone suffering, you don’t feel good. Your natural response is to want to reduce their suffering. Similarly, self-compassion is about doing things to stop your suffering.

Self-compassion is about learning to accept your flaws and imperfections, which makes you who you are. It’s how you treat yourself, especially when you’ve made mistakes, or let yourself and others down.

Common Myths of Self-Compassion

If self-compassion is so valuable, why is it difficult to accept?

Here are common myths of self-compassion, which stops people from adopting it as a regular practice.

It implies being selfish.
It makes you weak.
It is a form of self-pity.
It will lower your drive or motivation.
It will causes others to judge you.
It can cause you to believe you are letting yourself off the hook.

If you make self-compassion a regular practice, you will improve how you see and treat yourself and others.

A simple example of how I am practicing self-compassion is with my daily schedule. Every day, I aim to complete three big tasks that will move either a project forward or get me closer to a goal.

Previously, if I did not complete my three tasks, I would criticise myself a lot, which would get me down. That did not help me have a healthy mindset or be productive the next day.

Now, if I do not complete my three big tasks, as part of my daily review, I will ask myself, “What could I have done better today?” Then I let go of any negative emotions I may have about not completing my tasks.

This simple practice has allowed me to be kinder to myself, which has also made me more focused and committed to what I want to get done.

5 Habits You Can Develop to Have More Self-Compassion

Here are five habits that will help you have more self-compassion so you can be kinder to yourself and inspire others to do the same.

Embrace your imperfections. Just like everyone else, you have weaknesses and strengths. Things you consider weaknesses should not cause you to judge or criticise yourself. A better alternative is to acknowledge things you are not good at and strive to continually improve.
Practice forgiving yourself. Everyone makes mistakes. If everyone got down on themselves for making mistakes, things would not get done. Learning to forgive yourself is about focusing on your self-care. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes and commit to doing better next time.
Celebrate your wins daily. No matter how difficult or disappointing you think your day has been, there is always something to celebrate. This is about training yourself to acknowledge the small things you do well, but do not always give yourself credit for. Celebrating your wins can become a daily self-love ritual.
Strengthen your mind with positive self-talk. Years of negative self-talk such as judgment or criticism, is often deeply rooted in a person’s identity. Rather than fighting the negativity, saying positive words to yourself will reprogram your mind. This is a reason why positive affirmations will improve your attitude and outlook on life.
Avoid comparing yourself to others. Comparing your accomplishments to someone else’s, will often cause you to feel you are not as good as they are or you don’t have what it takes to succeed. Being part of a like-minded community or peer group will help keep you focused on what’s important.

Final Thoughts

Your relationship with yourself includes the level of self-compassion you have. If you practice self-compassion regularly, you will be happier, more relaxed and improve the relationships in your life. It is an important gift you can give yourself.

If you don’t practice self-compassion, you will get down on yourself whenever you make mistakes or when things don’t go your way. Learning to accept you are doing the best you can to go through life, will allow you to have more self-compassion.

Action Step: Think about the last time you did something you later regretted. How did you deal with that experience? When you make a mistake again, identity practices you can adopt to have more self-compassion.

Question: What are other habits that will make you have more self-compassion?