High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 638: Stop Criticizing Yourself

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Self-compassion, or the practice of being kind to yourself in times of failure, pain or when you note something you don’t like about yourself instead of being self-critical, is key to practice right now to be your best more often. When we show self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness as we would to others recognizing that all humans suffer and we are not alone. We can then use tools to stop being so critical of ourselves remembering we are not alone.   This week’s Power Phrase: “I am kind to myself. I remind myself I am doing the best I can.” Quote of the Week: "You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” - Louise Hay

Hi, friends. My name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week, I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. Once again, we check in with Sindra Kampoff. And today we talk about criticizing ourself and how to stop criticizing yourself. Sindra, start us off with a quote. This is one of my favorite quotes of all time. It's by Lewis Hague. And she said, you've been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try proving of yourself and see what happens. What inspired the topic today? Well, Lisa, a couple weeks ago, I provided a keynote

at the United Way event that had 700 women there. It was incredible. And the theme was all about spreading kindness. And my talk was about being kind to yourself. So the idea that, you know, to spread kindness throughout the world, it actually starts with us, like you and me. And what it was, you know, powerful at the end was just so many women said, I really needed to hear that today. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. My main kind of point of that talk was that kindness starts with you. You need to stop criticizing yourself. All right. So why is it important to be kind to ourselves right now? Well, self-compassion, that's the practice of being kind to yourself, especially in times of failure or pain or when you note something that you don't really like about yourself. And you might think, Lisa, that we should, you know, the harder we are on ourselves, the quicker we'll get to our goal. I thought that for many years, you know, the more critical I was of myself, the better I would do or better I would perform or the more I would tease. But it's actually quite the opposite. You know, it led

to a lot of suffering and a lack of confidence. And today, when I talked about how self-compassion is really three parts, self-kindness, so being kind to yourself, common humanity, which basically means, you know, everyone suffers, and then mindfulness, which just means taking a mindful approach and kind of noticing the thought to the times when you're really hard on yourself. Well, what about those that are listening that are skeptical, meaning like we don't want to be too easy on ourselves? Yeah, good question. You know, lots of times we think that self-compassion might lead to complacency or a lack of motivation or productivity, or, you know, maybe even our ability to reach our goals. But actually the opposite is true. What their research shows is that when we're kind to ourselves, we actually want to improve. And being kind to ourselves

actually improves our motivation. So, Cendra, what is the most important part about being kind to yourself? Well, I mentioned, you know, there's three parts of self-compassion, self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. I think the most self-compassion, self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. I think the most important part of that is self-kindness. And I think that's the hard part that people really struggle with. And to me, it means three things. And some of this is based on the researcher, Dr. Kristen Neff, her research on this. But she says being kind to ourselves means being supportive and encouraging of ourselves and not berating ourselves.

It also means that we work to have unconditional acceptance of ourselves and not attack ourselves. And then the last part is, can we soothe and comfort ourselves when we feel like we fail? Again, really hard to do. Yeah. And what is the what's the benefit of being kind to ourselves? Well, I think besides motivation, like I mentioned earlier, we can quickly bounce back from mistakes. You know, we're able to deal with adversity and just setbacks. And I think it's also a powerful antidote to just like when we're stressed out or when we feel like, you know, kind of perfectionistic thinking. And we practice self-compassion, we tend to, you know,

are kinder to ourselves, so we're less likely to ruminate or have negative thinking. Okay. All right. So how do we actually go about practicing, like, some self-compassion? Well, I would say, at first, just realizing that all people suffer and, you know, all people feel like they're not enough. And so just realizing we're not alone can be really helpful. And realize, you know, that all humans go through difficulties. So it's easy to kind of feel self-pity. And we can talk to ourselves really powerfully to kind of reduce that suffering. And then I think the last part is what I was saying

about just being kind to yourself, being supportive and encouraging, not berating of yourself. All right. How would you summarize today for us? I would say the practice of self-compassion and, you know, being kind to yourself when you feel like you fail or when you experience pain or when you know something that you don't like about yourself. We want to do that instead of being self-critical. And then we show ourselves some compassion. We give ourselves the same kindness that we would to other people, you know, recognizing that we all suffer and we're not alone. And we can kind of soften that inner voice to remember that. All right, Cinder, leave us with a good power phrase for this week. I would say this, I'm kind to myself and I remind myself I'm doing the best that I can.

All right. And how do we follow along with you? If we want to get some more information on this or learn about some of your other teachings. Yes. I talk about this idea of being kind to yourself and self-compassion in both my books, Beyond Grit and Beyond Grit for Business. You can find more information about those at DrCindra, the D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow. DrChra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. See you next week.