This may not be our most popular blog ever. But today, we are talking about the concept of “giving yourself grace.” This is a loaded phrase for many reasons. For one, it’s been sort of “hijacked” to mean something that doesn’t quite align with the values we embody here.
Let’s start at the beginning. What IS grace? What does GIVING YOURSELF GRACE truly mean? Grace is transformative, but for it to be transformative, it has to be rooted in truth and followed by action.
Grace-giving should involve more than putting yourself at ease. It should also prompt you to action, whether that’s self-care, repairing a damaged relationship, or taking responsibility for your choices.
With this in mind, here are four main reflections about why we prefer to foster self-compassion rather than giving yourself grace.
1. Are you able to acknowledge both your strengths and weaknesses?
When faced with criticism, it’s common to react defensively, downplaying negative feedback and affirming our positive qualities. Sometimes this response is warranted (not all criticism is fair). But other times, we miss potentially useful information by reacting defensively.
By contrast, a mindset rooted in self-compassion involves accepting imperfections and recognizing that we’re all human, which may make negative information easier to accept.
Research has found that self-compassionate people tend to feel less threatened by social evaluative tasks (such as a mock job interview). They view their performance more realistically, neither inflating nor deflating it. In one study, college students were asked to complete a somewhat embarrassing task —making up a children’s story on the fly. Then, they evaluated their own and others’ performances in terms of qualities such as awkwardness, competence, confidence, and creativity. Self-compassionate participants tended to see themselves similarly to how their peers saw them. This suggests that they may have more accurate self-views.
In other words, that SUPER EMBARRASSING thing that happened to you last month? No one remembers it as clearly (or as embarrassingly) as you. So if you’re feeling good about yourself but can’t bear to face any potential areas of improvement, you’re probably not being very self-compassionate. Instead, you may be overly harsh, not allowing yourself to have faults.
PSA: Doing the opposite and fixating on your faults can also be a way of letting yourself off the hook. We might think, “This is just the way I am, and there’s nothing I can do to change it” about a behavior that is in fact in our control, which absolves us from responsibility.
By contrast, self-compassion inspires taking responsibility for what we can change—and taking the initiative to change it.
2. Are you considering your overall health and well-being? Or are you focusing on your current preferences?
Sometimes we do things that feel good in the short-term but cause problems for us down the line. Some examples include staying up late watching TV or eating foods that could harm our health.
We see this as a way of treating ourselves. And certainly, there are some situations where a little self-indulgence doesn’t hurt. But self-compassion differs from giving yourself grace because it’s rooted in genuine care for your well-being in the long term, and what feels best in the moment isn’t always what’s best for us in the long run. Just as a parent doesn’t indulge a child’s every wish, part of being good to ourselves is setting limits when necessary.
Self-compassion can help people stick to a health-promoting diet (in this case, eliminating gluten for people with Celiac disease), reduce smoking, and recommit to an exercise goal following a setback.
So if you’re thinking, “I’m just being nice to myself,” but you’re suffering for it after the fact, ask yourself what it would look like to truly be kind to yourself.
3. Do you feel compassion for others as well as for yourself?
Just because it includes the word “self,” self-compassion isn’t all about you. It stems from a sense of common humanity, which is the recognition that suffering is a part of being human. It isn’t something we alone experience.
A self-compassionate thought might be, “This is a hard thing to go through,” as opposed to, “Poor me.” That’s not to say we can’t also feel compassion for ourselves for having an occasional “Poor me” moment when times are tough.
In one study, young adults reported every few days on events that had happened to them and how they reacted. Self-compassionate participants were more likely to disagree with self-focused statements like “I seem to have bigger problems than most people do” and “Why do these things always happen to me?” even though they experienced similar types and degrees of negative events as less self-compassionate participants.
In other research, romantic partners of self-compassionate people saw them as more caring and supportive and less controlling or verbally aggressive. They are also more accepting of their imperfections and the shortcomings of romantic partners and acquaintances.
That is, self-compassionate people don’t just cut themselves some slack; they also extend this forgiving spirit to others.
So if you’re not feeling as charitable towards others as you are towards yourself, it may be because you’re overwhelmed with what you’re going through, in which case you could probably benefit from more — not less — self-compassion.
4. Are you ready for a challenge, or are you playing it safe?
We may feel reluctant to try something new if we’re unsure whether we’ll be successful, like taking a difficult class, trying to break an unhealthy habit, or joining an online dating service. Especially if we’ve experienced failure in the past, it can be scary to open up to the possibility of failure or rejection. Protecting ourselves may seem like the self-compassionate thing to do. Still, self-compassionate people are more likely to want to challenge themselves and go beyond their comfort zone, potentially because they’re less afraid of failure.
From a self-compassionate perspective, failure isn’t something to be ashamed of but a normal and common human experience and an opportunity to learn something valuable about what might work better next time.
It’s easier to take a chance when the possibility of things not working out feels less threatening. So if going easy on yourself means not taking risks in pursuit of a goal that’s important to you, it may stem more from fear than self-compassion.
Real self-compassion sets you free
Many things can disguise themselves as self-compassion. Avoiding responsibility, taking the easy road… There’s a lot you can do under the guise of giving yourself grace. It’s normal to do this if that’s how you’ve acted your entire life. But you won’t see the change you want in your life if you stick to these habits. So next time you’re tempted to take the easy road, ask yourself, where is this road taking me? And be HONEST about the answer.
At MYLF Coaching, we believe in taking ownership of the choices we make. We are INFORMED and EDUCATED about what it takes to reach our goals. And we KNOW what levers to pull to stay on our path. We embrace temporary discomfort in exchange for long-term achievement. And most importantly, we understand that life is not all or nothing. Making one mistake doesn’t mean DOOMING ourselves to failure. It simply means it’s time to reevaluate and pivot.
Ready to embrace the journey with all of its imperfections?
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