Why Self-Compassion Is the Key to Success

By Aleida Lopez Gimenez

In order to succeed in life, whether it is in your relationships, job, or fitness goals, it is very important to have the right mindset. We all tend to look up to those people who have all figured out and admire their own self-esteem as, inevitably, we feel that it plays a key role in their success stories.

But, is their self-esteem the direct cause of their motivation to be their better selves? Research shows that another self-affirming approach might be even more useful in your path towards success: self-compassion.

Self-compassion or self-forgiveness means treating yourself with kindness and understanding, letting go of regret, and accepting mistakes as part of human nature and your personal growth journey. A study by psychologists Juliana G. Breines and Serena Chen proves that this approach might help you overcome anxiety and fear of failure and put you on track towards success.

Self-Compassion vs. Self-Esteem

Self-compassion and self-esteem, at first, might seem two similar concepts. However, you don’t need to feel very good about yourself to show yourself compassion, just as you can be compassionate towards other people even if you do not agree with their decisions.

Having a lot of confidence in yourself (in other words, having high self-esteem) has a lot of benefits to your own well-being, of course, but it doesn’t necessarily help in personal growth or learning. Breines and Chen point out in their article that some previous studies show how self-enhancement might lead to inflated self-evaluations that, in turn, lead to greater defensiveness, lower resilience, and poorer academic results.

On the other hand, self-compassion tends to avoid the extremes of self-enhancement and self-deprecation, which would be characteristic of high and low self-esteem. It usually is a more realistic approach towards our own capacities and behavior, which is very helpful in a personal growth journey.

Pros and Cons of Self-Compassion

Research shows that self-compassion improves your well-being in many aspects of your life, including higher levels of optimism and happiness, lower levels of anxiety and depression, and better romantic relationship functioning.

Self-forgiveness, which is a broader concept related to self-compassion, has been proven to be a healthy process that promotes behaviors beneficial to one’s social relations, that is, as long as individuals take responsibility for their actions and experience remorse. Researchers have raised the concern that this approach, without the process of taking responsibility, might lead to lower personal standards, reduced empathy, and reduced engagement in acknowledging and repairing one’s mistakes.

However, Breines and Chen’s article argues that, overall, self-compassion is not detrimental to personal growth. Even if it is often associated with lower self-criticism, it doesn’t mean you don’t hold high personal standards. The experiments they conducted for the study give solid proof that backs the hypothesis that self-compassion “leads to increased self-improvement motivation”, as it “uniquely creates a safe space to confront negative aspects of the self and strive to better them”. 

The Benefits of Self-Compassion

Breines and Chen’s article also gathers information from previous research about the areas of your life in which a self-compassionate approach might be beneficial and effective motivation for self-improvement:

• Work and studies: self-compassion makes you more efficient and less procrastinator, and also helps for better performance and mastery of your skills.

• Health: it helps you with exercise motivation, reduce smoking, and it has even been proven effective for attenuating overeating after “diet failures” with people with eating disorders.

• Relationships: a self-compassionate approach motivates you to correct interpersonal mistakes, especially in romantic relationships.

Conclusion 

In conclusion, self-compassion is a very useful process on how to respond to failure and find motivation for self-improvement and personal growth. Unlike other approaches that present a more extreme vision of yourself, whatever inflated or deflated, self-compassion is usually a more realistic one, which makes it a more effective method of motivating change.

It is not always easy to forgive one’s own flaws and mistakes, but working on creating a warm and safe space in which you can learn from the past and try it again in the future will be a rewarding and effective way to reach your personal goals and grow to be your better self.

+ References

• Breines, J. G., & Chen, S. (2012). Self-Compassion Increases Self-Improvement Motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1-12.