The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 52 - Why You Need To Be Kinder To Yourself: Fearne Cotton

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. Fearne Cotton is an author, presenter and podcast host with a goal to help all of her listeners find their own happy place. In this clip, we talk about one section of her book that hones in on the idea of being more self-compassionate. It's something I’ve spoken about a lot, talking about this voice inside our heads that talks to us. What Fearne says here is that we need to choose what we listen to, and what we focus on. We need to focus on the stuff that we like about ourselves and the things that we really want to celebrate. It’s a matter of where we put our attention and focus, and that is a hard practical discipline that we need to work on. It’s so important that we learn to become more self-compassionate. I hope listening to Fearne’s episode will move you in the right direction. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/OrX6sjtZEob Fearne - https://www.instagram.com/fearnecotton/channel/ Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. You start in part one of the book talking about this sort of self-compassion experiment. So tell me about what this self-compassion experiment is and what it taught you and how it helped you with those limiting beliefs. It really means a lot that you got that from the book. So I'm super grateful. But self-compassion, I didn't really know

where this book would take me. I knew the subjects I wanted to cover. I didn't know what the themes would be at the start. That kind of appeared later down the line as the book kind of formed. But the first section did very much end up sort of seeped in the theme of self-compassion. And I guess the starting point was talking to Wendy, who is a shaman that I know Wendy Mandy and she's lived with many indigenous tribes and shamanic people the world over I won't say how

old she is but she's done this for decades and decades and every message seemed to go back to self-compassion and I've always known it's important, but I've certainly not practiced it because you do have to practice it. And I've certainly not nailed it. I've allowed myself to get back into these loops of like this acerbic voice that says I'm a piece of shit, et cetera.

So I was like, if Wendy's saying this again and again and again, and then so is the next person I interview and the next person I interview and the next person I interview. Then I've got to focus on this. And it is a matter of focus. You can focus on all the things you don't like about yourself, or you can choose to, you know, accept and acknowledge that there are some things you're not as good at and mistakes you've made. Everyone has. We are human. We are fallible humans. But you can focus on the stuff that you really

like about yourself and that you really want to celebrate about yourself and that you know and that you notice the gifts that you have because we've all got that every single person has got something to give so it's a matter of putting your focus and attention here or putting it over here so that was what I learned writing that chapter was I need to focus more on this stuff and not keep worrying so much. Should I have said this? Have I upset that person? Is it awful that 10 years ago I did this thing that I really regret? You know, we've all done that. There's no single person, even the shiny movie stars we see in the cinema or people we see on Instagram with 20 million followers

they have all made mistakes they all have ugly bits of themselves they don't like silly things they've done awful things they've said slip-ups they've made you know they've done things not from a benevolent place we've all done it but we can choose to not live in that area the whole time and like focus on it and drown in it. And we can look at the stuff that we do want to celebrate about ourselves with acceptance. You haven't got to ignore and shun the shadow side because we've all got that, but have an acceptance of it alongside celebrating the good stuff, I think is really what I learned from writing that chapter. And in practical terms celebrate how do you celebrate the good stuff

and try not to let the mind wander away when you wake up in the morning and you start immediately thinking about oh my god my my hair is this my nails are that why haven't I done this I'm a bad mum etc as you write about in the book how do you what's the practical kind of like discipline that you've engaged in to be more self-compassionate? I'm quite lucky in the fact that I'm a very obvious person. So I can see myself very obviously. My habits are obvious and they're big. And my big one is to work too much and to be a workaholic and to put the kids to bed

and then keep working until I'm exhausted. And my husband's like, shut your fucking laptop. Like, what are you doing? Just stop. Like, what are you doing? stop like what are you doing and sometimes that is coming from a place of wanting to do well some of the time a lot of the time probably 80 of the time that is coming from a place of i'm a shitty person i don't deserve what i've got i don't deserve to have the job that I've got. I've made mistakes. I'm

an idiot. I have to work harder if I am to believe that I deserve where I'm at. That's where that's coming from. So I can see it. It's obvious. When I go into workaholic mode, I go, oh, I don't, I must be not liking myself very much. I'm beating myself up about something within me. And it's deep rooted. You have to get down to that place of what is this that I don't like about myself. And on the days that I choose to do something nice for myself, and I'm not talking about anything fancy. I'm talking about going for a walk. That to me is bliss. Headphones, music, walking, I'm in heaven. Going for a walk, resting, like allowing myself time out out allowing myself time where I'm not

worrying about emails and how well the podcast is doing and is my book selling and just being and hanging out with nice people or having a friendly chat with someone then I know that my actions are coming from a place where I'm at peace with myself that day. So I'm obvious. It'll be different for everyone, but you can probably spot the patterns where you're in a little negative cycle versus the ones where you're being nicer to yourself.