Career Coach: Why You Need Self-Compassion

Sarah made an embarrassing mistake –she neglected to include an important team member on a meeting invitation. She felt so embarrassed that she tried to cover up her error. Erin forgot her assistant’s five-year anniversary. She felt so guilty she beat herself up about it for days. These types of reactions have a cost to others and ourselves. How can we recover from these feelings and find a way to move forward with resilience and increase our performance in the future?

Recent studies by the University of California, Berkeley’s Juliana Breines and Serena Chen have revealed that it is self-compassion – not self-esteem – that enhances effectiveness. Self-compassion, or treating one’s own suffering with the same type of support and compassion offered to others, is more important than self-esteem in developing skills and performance. Self-compassion enables people to accept their mistakes, failures, and shortcomings with kindness. These researchers argue that self-compassion is even more effective when accompanied by accepting responsibility for any unsuccessful outcomes, and using the information to non-punitively improve performance. 

In the study, Breines and Chen asked volunteers to consider an actual personal setback or failure with either self-compassion or self-esteem enhancing perspectives. Volunteers who practiced a self-compassionate perspective tended to view the shortcomings as changeable, and felt more motivation to improve performance by avoiding the same mistake in the future. Being kind to ourselves, as we might our best friend, is a powerful way to find our center after a mistake or poor performance. 

But what can Sarah and Erin do to use these feelings to create a pathway to greater effectiveness? Sarah can use her feeling of embarrassment to promote acceptance by self and others by asking herself, “What strategy can I use to gain acceptance in light of my mistake?” Erin can use her feeling of guilt to foster great accountability by asking herself, “What strategies might I use to uphold my ethic around remembering special occasions?” 

Our self-compassion is an important gift we give ourselves in an expression of love and kindness. Listening to our emotions for the important messages they send us can make a big difference to our performance. 

–Andrea Zintz, Career Coach