Imagine you see an ad for your dream job with top-notch perks and benefits to match! It almost feels as if they took the listing from the typical answer you give when someone asks, “Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?” You rush home from your not so ideal job and quickly apply. Giving it your all and feeling really proud of how intelligent and competent you sound on paper. Within the week, you get an email from HR requesting to schedule an initial phone interview! At this point, you’re feeling on top of the world, and you move your schedule around this VIP call (I mean, this could be the start of all your career dreams coming true). You schedule and execute the phone interview like a pro and feel even more confident about the possibility of this becoming real. You tentatively start telling your close friends and drafting your resignation letter.

Then one day at lunch, you check your emails, and you spot one from the Company’s HR. You open the email, only to read, “Thank you for applying to the DREAM POSITION at the DREAM COMPANY. We regret to inform you that we have decided to go with another candidate…”. You immediately feel your stomach drop, heart clench, and completely deflated. You start telling yourself some version of the following: “you must have bombed the interview, maybe you presented as too desperate, how dumb could you actually be to believe you’re good enough to get this job, you’re not good enough.” Then you quickly tell yourself “stop feeling sorry for yourself, man (or woman) up! You should be lucky you still have a job! There are starving kids in Africa, and you’re complaining about not getting a job, poor you!” This internal dialogue going back and forth, from one extreme to the other, from beating yourself up to yelling at yourself for being a victim.

What if there was a different way to deal with disappointments and setbacks? What if instead of being so hard on yourself, you could actually learn to start treating yourself kindly? And recognizing that being kind to yourself doesn’t mean playing the victim. I’m talking about beginning to cultivate some self-compassion instead. What is self-compassion, you ask? Dr. Kristin Neff discusses that self-compassion encompasses three core components: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.

Self-kindness: being loving and gentle with yourself rather than harsh and critical.

Common Humanity: feeling connected with others in the experience of life rather than feeling isolated by your distress (especially when you’re struggling).

Mindfulness: being present with your experience with balanced awareness, rather than ignoring your hurt or amplifying it.

Let’s take a further look at each self-compassion element, starting with the most obvious and simple one: self-kindness. Basically, do you talk to yourself how you would speak to a friend who is going through a similar struggle? Is your self-talk kind and soothing, coming from a place of love and acceptance? Or do you tend to be punitive with yourself because being kind is for babies or small children? There tends to be a common misconception that we shouldn’t be kind to ourselves when facing a setback because that just leads to coddling or not learning the lesson. But the reality is we tend to do better when we are kind to ourselves, especially when we’ve experienced difficulty. Just think about it. When you were a kid, would you rather go to a teacher who would be friendly and patient even when you didn’t understand something? Or would you prefer to go to the teacher known for being a bully and making kids feel dumb? I think most of us would pick the former rather than the latter because who wants to feel judged or criticized when we’re already struggling to grasp something?

So why do we think that being harsh with ourselves is the way to go? Self-kindness means embodying the kind teacher’s spirit with yourself when you face hardship, think Miss. Honey from Matilda. If we take this posture with ourselves, the reality is we are more likely to pursue our aspirations. Because if we fail, we’re not going to rub our own noses in the pile of poo but rather be gentle with ourselves. Just to be clear, you’re allowed to be kind to yourself even when it’s not a catastrophic end of the world scenario. It can be as small as feeling squashed because you failed a test or didn’t give your best performance during an important business meeting.

Now, let’s look at the concept of common humanity. This one is a bit more abstract to understand but stay with me. First, let’s remind ourselves that compassion involves a relational quality, meaning showing compassion towards another individual(s) struggles. So the notion of common humanity merely is recognizing that no matter what you’re currently dealing with, you are not alone in feeling the way you’re feeling. In fact, it’s about reminding yourself that you’re part of a larger fallible human species. Each of which has dealt with their own experience of suffering, making mistakes, and being imperfect. It’s about reminding ourselves that failing is part of the human experience. It can be a point of connection to the larger human existence. Sometimes we feel isolated and alone by our flaws or suffering. We start to believe that no one can understand or relate to the experience we’re having, making us feel worse. It’s the difference from telling yourself, “no one would have messed up the way I just did” vs. “everyone has times when they have made mistakes.” It’s not about feeling sorry for yourself either because that sounds more like “poor me” versus “we all suffer.”

The last component is the ever-present notion of mindfulness. This is about pausing and slowing down to become aware of what you are currently experiencing and giving yourself permission to notice it non-judgmentally. It means just stepping back and labeling what you are experiencing (physically, mentally, and emotionally) without diminishing or exaggerating. It’s taking an attitude of being present with whatever experience comes up and being aware if you start avoiding or being harsh with yourself. You can always use your breath to anchor yourself back to your actual experience when you’ve checked out or feel overwhelmed.

If we were to go back to the example of not getting the dream job, a response based in self-compassion would look like something like this:

Mindfulness: A couple seconds after receiving the email, take some deep breaths, and notice what’s going on with you. “I’m feeling crushed because I did not get my dream job. I’m sad and disappointed. I’m starting to notice some critical thoughts about myself come up, and my stomach feels like someone punched it. “

Common Humanity: “Let me remind myself that everyone has moments when they feel imperfect, make mistakes, and suffer just like I’m currently feeling. It makes sense that I’m reacting this way. It’s only human.”

Self-Kindness: “Let me try to take a different approach with myself. If I were talking to Ms. Honey, what would she tell me right now? She would say something like, “Oh, it’s ok sweetie, it happens to the best of us! It’s not a representation of who you are or what you can offer, but I know you really had your heart set on this, so it’s ok that you’re bummed.”

Now that you know what self-compassion looks like start practicing it! Be gentle with yourself though, you won’t always get it right! But then use that as an opportunity to practice self-compassion. 🙂