This is a simple message about being kinder to ourselves and treating ourselves the same way we treat that one person in our life we love and cherish the most.
Whether that be a child, spouse, friend or lover, you need to start treating yourself with the same level of kindness, compassion, respect and understanding you apply to them.
Because we are often so cruel to ourselves and whilst we might not see ourselves as being a bully to others, we can certainly become a bully to ourselves.
So, ask yourself these questions;
How do you speak to yourself?
Why do you speak to yourself the way you do and when did this start?
Because these elements are core to having a healthy and respectful relationship with yourself. And if you find that you treat those people around you betterthan you treat yourself, well that is something you need to change.
Ask yourself, would you speak to those people around you the same way you speak to yourself; using the same language and tone you use with yourself?
For most of us probably not.
Now it’s one thing to have high expectations of yourself and to push yourself to be better. I am a big believer in that and always have been. A motto I love from my boys' school is “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until good becomes better and better becomes best”.
I am all in for personal growth and development, however, when approached the wrong way and tied with feelings of inadequacy (which most of us have in some shape or form), it means we can end up calling ourselves a failure, ugly, unlovable, washed up, not rich enough, not successful enough, not good enough.
Simply terrible things, using language we would never use when speaking to a friend, colleague or direct report.
Listen to what you say to yourself, and the way you say it and keep asking yourself the question - would I speak the same way to someone else?
I remember an enormously successful friend of mine told me once that at the end of each day he says to himself “what did I fail at today”? Something I can assure you he would never say to anyone else. So I asked him why he felt it was acceptable to speak to himself like this when he would never speak like that to the people around him.
I remember speaking to a young woman about this subject when she was serving me in an Apple store. She was beautiful, intelligent, articulate and very good at her job. We got to talking about the book Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck and I asked her would she speak to her friends the same way she speaks to herself. She was horrified saying “absolutely not” and from the look on her face, I saw that she was quite taken aback.
So start being kinder to yourself. Say nice things to yourself and about yourself. Be that fan of you, that you are to others.
My friend Jane once described to me that one of the ways you can learn to be kinder to yourself is to start viewing yourself as a child.
Think about the kindness you would offer to a younger you when they felt sad, lonely or a failure. Think about the fact that you’d want your younger self to be strong and positive and get back out there fighting.
You would never bully them; in fact quite the opposite. You would fight for them, nurture them and protect them with the strength and encouragement they needed to be successful and happy.
So, remember that this younger you is also a part of you, and if you would do this for your younger self surely you should be applying that same thinking to yourself today.
Remind your younger self that one mistake or failure doesn’t make you an idiot or your whole life a failure. Remind them that life is not just about who you are today, but the strength you build up over years, the journey you take and the moments you share and experience.
So, make a list now of the five things you like about yourself the most. What are they and how are they are demonstrated to others.
Maybe you are a good listener, a good helper or a good encourager. Make a list and every now and again when you start giving yourself too hard a time, go back to that list and add to it.
Over time you will build a reminder of the truly magical things about yourself and you will learn to celebrate your uniqueness and the joy and blessings you bring to the people around you.
You also need to ask yourself the question why do you speak to yourself the way you do and when did this start?
We are not born with the natural inclination to beat ourselves up. To speak poorly to our self. To tell our self that we are not good enough. In fact, the complete opposite is true and speaking badly to ourselves is something we learn over time through trauma, failure and conditioning.
Ask yourself why do I say bad things about myself? When did I start doing this and what were the events that triggered this language to myself?
Understanding why you say the things you say to yourself is critical to transformation, because until you understand this you can’t affect the change needed to be happy, healthy and well.
For me it all seemed to come back to self-worth, so for me I needed to understand what happened to make me start feeling this way.
How you speak to yourself and understanding the reason why you say the things you do to yourself, is central to having and developing a healthy self-image. So, take the time to work through this.
For me, I did it this through a process of intense personal examination and journaling, talking with friends, and time with my coach and therapist. And to be clear, this can be an extremely painful but necessary process, because when you start peeling back the onion of your life you might be surprised with what you find!
So a quick exercise. Imagine how good you would feel if you were to let go of your core critical beliefs about yourself.
Write them down and ask yourself why you feel that way. Where did they come from, when were they formed what basis in truth do they even hold in your life.
If you determine they are things you need to work on, do that and work through how you need to make that happen, but do that in the context of how you would coach your younger self.
We all need to be kinder to ourselves and to love ourselves more, and we need to start doing it more today and more every day.
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