How to stop being so hard on yourself, with self-compassion

To stop being so hard on yourself, practise answering your own struggles the way you’d answer a good friend’s: notice that it hurts, remember that other people go through this too, and offer yourself some kindness instead of criticism. Psychologists call this self-compassion. It’s a skill rather than a personality trait, so it can be learned, and it doesn’t mean lowering your standards or letting yourself off the hook.

Why are some people so hard on themselves?

Most people who are hard on themselves believe, somewhere, that it works: that criticism keeps them sharp, stops them getting lazy, or protects them from failing in front of others. The inner critic is usually an attempt at protection that has gone too far.

It tends to come from somewhere. Some people grew up with critical or demanding adults and learned to get there first. Some were praised mainly for achievements, so their worth started to feel conditional. Others simply hold high standards and treat every shortfall as a personal failure. Stress makes the critic louder for almost everyone.

The trouble is that a constant inner critic is exhausting. It makes mistakes feel dangerous, so people avoid trying new things, put off starting, or work far longer than needed to avoid any chance of getting it wrong. That pattern is common in people who look successful from the outside, which the post on anxiety that looks like coping describes well.

Being kinder to yourself isn’t about silencing the part of you that cares about doing well. It’s about changing its tone.

What does self-compassion actually mean?

Self-compassion means treating yourself with the same warmth and understanding you’d offer a friend who was struggling. The idea was developed as a research topic by psychologist Kristin Neff, who describes three parts, each with an opposite:

All three matter. Kindness without the other two can turn into soothing yourself while you still feel uniquely flawed. Mindfulness comes first in practice, because you can’t be kind about pain you haven’t noticed. Many people who are hard on themselves don’t register that they’re suffering at all, only that they’ve “messed up again”.

Isn’t self-compassion just letting yourself off the hook?

No. Self-compassion is about how you treat yourself, not about pretending things are fine. You can be kind to yourself and still say clearly that you got something wrong and want to do better.

Research suggests it may make it easier to do better, not harder. In experiments by Juliana Breines and Serena Chen, people who were encouraged to take a self-compassionate view of a failure or a mistake were more motivated to improve than people who were simply given a boost to their self-esteem. In one study, they spent longer studying for a retest after failing a difficult one.

That fits everyday experience. When you’re terrified of the criticism that follows a mistake, the easiest thing is to avoid looking at the mistake at all. When the response will be understanding rather than attack, you can afford to look at what went wrong.

A few other common worries:

• “It’s self-pity.” Self-pity tends to feel like being the only one suffering. Self-compassion includes remembering that everyone struggles, which pulls the other way.
• “It’s weak.” Facing your own failings honestly, without collapsing into blame, takes more strength than criticising yourself on autopilot.
• “It’s selfish.” Treating yourself kindly usually leaves more energy for other people, not less.

How is self-compassion different from self-esteem?

Self-esteem is how you judge your own worth. Self-compassion is how you treat yourself, especially when that judgement goes badly. The difference matters because self-esteem often depends on doing well or comparing favourably with others, and it can drop exactly when you need it most.

Kristin Neff has argued that self-compassion offers a steadier footing for this reason: you don’t have to be above average or successful to deserve kindness. You only have to be a person who is struggling.

The two are related, and working on one tends to help the other. If what you mainly notice is a low sense of your own worth, the post on building healthier self-esteem covers that side, and the self-esteem questionnaire takes about 3 minutes.

How do you practise self-compassion in a hard moment?

A short pause, built around Neff’s three parts, is the simplest place to start. You can do it in under a minute, at a desk, in a car or lying awake at night.

1. Notice. Think of what’s hard right now and say to yourself: this is a moment of difficulty. Naming it gives you a little distance from it.
2. Remember you’re not alone. Everyone struggles sometimes. Remind yourself that other people feel this way too.
3. Be kind. Put a hand on your chest and ask what you’d say to a good friend right now. Then say it to yourself.

Sprout’s free self-compassion pause takes you through those three steps on screen, one at a time, which can be easier than remembering them when you’re upset.

Other ways to practise

• Write yourself a letter about something you feel bad about, as a kind friend who knows your whole story would write it.
• Change the pronoun. Talking to yourself by name or as “you”, rather than “I”, can make it easier to take the friend’s view.
• Catch the tone. When you notice self-talk like “you idiot”, try rewording the same point gently: “that didn’t go how I hoped, and I’m disappointed”.
• Calm your body first. When feelings are very strong, a few slow breaths can help before any of this. The slow breathing exercise guides you through it.

What if kindness towards yourself feels uncomfortable?

That’s common, and it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. For people who are used to criticising themselves, kindness can feel fake, awkward or even upsetting at first. Old hurts sometimes come up the moment you stop bracing against them.

If that happens, go smaller. Instead of loving words, try plain, neutral ones: “this is hard”. Instead of a hand on your chest, try just a slower breath. You don’t have to feel warm towards yourself for the practice to count. The aim is a slightly less hostile tone, repeated often enough to become familiar.

If thoughts keep circling back to what you did wrong, that looping is its own problem, and there are practical ways to break it.

Does self-compassion really help with anxiety and low mood?

It seems to. Many studies have linked higher self-compassion with less anxiety, depression and stress, and programmes that teach it, such as Mindful Self-Compassion, developed by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, are widely used. Most of this research shows a link rather than proving cause, but the pattern has held up across a lot of studies.

It isn’t a replacement for treatment. If you’ve been feeling low, anxious or hopeless for weeks, self-compassion can sit alongside talking to a doctor, not instead of it.

How can you tell how self-compassionate you are?

A questionnaire can show which parts come easily and which don’t, which is hard to see from the inside. The self-compassion test uses Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion Scale: 26 statements about how you treat yourself in hard times, taking about 7 minutes.

You get an overall score from 1 to 5, where higher means kinder, and six smaller scores, one for each side of the three pairs:

• warmth towards yourself, and criticising yourself;
• remembering that others struggle too, and feeling alone in it;
• keeping things in balance, and getting swept up in feelings.

As a rough guide from the scale’s author, an overall score below 2.5 is described as hard on yourself, 2.5 to 3.5 as some self-kindness, and above 3.5 as kind to yourself. These aren’t clinical norms, and a low score isn’t a diagnosis or a verdict on what kind of person you are. The scale is most useful for seeing how your own results change over time, so taking it again after a couple of months of practice can show whether anything has shifted.

When is a harsh inner voice a sign of something more?

Being hard on yourself is very common, but it’s worth paying attention when the critic stops being occasional and becomes constant. If you feel worthless most days, carry a lot of guilt, or feel that you’re a failure or have let everyone down, and that’s gone on for two weeks or more, it can be part of depression.

In that case, it’s worth talking to a doctor. The post on sadness versus depression helps sort out the difference. If the critic ever turns into thoughts of harming yourself, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line straight away.

People in caring jobs are often especially hard on themselves for not coping. If that sounds familiar, compassion fatigue in helpers explains why caring for others can wear you down.

Where to begin this week

Pick one moment a day, the one where the critic is usually loudest, and try the three-step pause there. Don’t aim to feel different straight away. Aim to notice, remember you’re not alone, and say one kind sentence to yourself.

If you’d like a starting point to compare against later, take the self-compassion questionnaire now and again in a couple of months. For most people the change is gradual, and the pause gets easier each time you use it.