F66 — WHAT IF YOU ACTUALLY LIKED YOURSELF?
Imagine how much energy you might get back.
Here's a slightly unusual question.
What if you actually liked yourself?
Not in an arrogant, "I'm absolutely marvellous and everyone should be grateful to know me" sort of way.
Not because you've finally achieved everything on your to-do list, reached your ideal weight, sorted out your relationships, become wildly successful or developed the ability to remain calm when someone loads the dishwasher incorrectly.
But simply because you're you.
With your strengths, weaknesses, peculiarities, mistakes, achievements, insecurities and occasional questionable decisions.
What if you stopped treating yourself as a permanent improvement project?
What if you didn't wake up every morning mentally listing everything you ought to change?
What if you could look in the mirror without immediately identifying seventeen things that need attention?
Imagine how much time and energy you might have left for actually enjoying your life.
The exhausting business of not being good enough
Many of us have a running commentary in our heads.
And it's not always particularly friendly.
"You should be fitter."
"You should be more successful."
"You should have achieved more by now."
"Why did you say that?"
"Everyone else seems to have their life together."
"You've let yourself go."
"You really ought to be doing something more productive."
It's rather like living with an exceptionally critical houseguest.
One who never leaves.
And who feels entitled to comment on absolutely everything.
Imagine having someone follow you around all day pointing out your shortcomings.
You'd probably ask them to leave.
Possibly quite firmly.
Yet we can become so accustomed to our own self-criticism that we barely notice it happening.
We mistake it for motivation.
Or discipline.
Or simply being realistic.
But constantly finding fault with yourself isn't necessarily helping you become a better person. It may just be making you miserable.
Why are we so hard on ourselves?
There isn't one simple explanation.
Some of us grew up in environments where achievement was praised more readily than effort.
Some learnt that being self-critical was a way of avoiding mistakes or disappointment.
Some compare themselves constantly with others.
Some have experienced criticism, rejection or relationships that affected their confidence.
And some simply have very high expectations of themselves.
We may even believe that being hard on ourselves is necessary.
"If I stop criticising myself, I'll become lazy."
"If I accept my body, I'll stop looking after it."
"If I'm satisfied with my life, I'll lose my ambition."
"If I don't push myself, I'll never achieve anything."
But there's an important question worth asking.
Has being relentlessly critical of yourself actually made you happier, healthier or more fulfilled?
Or has it simply made everything feel like a test you haven't quite passed?
Self-acceptance isn't the same as giving up
This is perhaps the biggest misunderstanding.
People sometimes imagine that accepting themselves means abandoning all ambition.
If I accept my body, why would I exercise?
If I accept my weaknesses, why would I try to improve?
If I'm happy with who I am, why would I bother learning anything new?
But self-acceptance and personal growth aren't opposites.
You can appreciate your body and still want to become stronger.
You can recognise your strengths and still develop new skills.
You can accept that you've made mistakes and still take responsibility for them.
You can be proud of your life and still want something different.
You can like yourself and still have goals.
The difference lies partly in the motivation behind those goals.
Are you trying to improve because you believe you're fundamentally inadequate?
Or because you value yourself enough to invest in your wellbeing and development?
You don't have to dislike who you are to become who you want to be.
The difference between self-esteem and self-compassion
Self-esteem generally involves how positively we evaluate ourselves.
It can be influenced by our achievements, appearance, relationships and comparisons with other people.
Self-compassion takes a slightly different approach.
Researcher Kristin Neff describes self-compassion as involving three broad elements:
Self-kindness: Responding to your difficulties with understanding rather than harsh judgement.
Common humanity: Recognising that mistakes, setbacks and imperfections are part of being human, rather than evidence that something is uniquely wrong with you.
Mindfulness: Acknowledging difficult thoughts and feelings without becoming completely overwhelmed by them.
This doesn't mean telling yourself you're wonderful when you've behaved badly.
It means recognising that you can take responsibility for your actions without attacking your entire character.
For example:
"I handled that conversation badly. I need to apologise."
Rather than:
"I'm a terrible person. I always ruin everything."
One response creates an opportunity to learn.
The other turns a mistake into an identity.
Would you speak to a friend like that?
Imagine a friend telling you she'd had a difficult week.
She missed a couple of workouts.
She ate more than she'd planned.
She snapped at her children.
She didn't get through her to-do list.
Would you respond:
"Well, frankly, you're a complete disappointment. You've clearly got no discipline and really ought to sort yourself out."
Probably not.
You'd be a fairly dreadful friend.
You might say:
"You've had a lot going on."
"Everyone has difficult weeks."
"What's making things so hard?"
"Is there anything you could do to make next week easier?"
And perhaps:
"Would you like a glass of wine?"
Although that last one isn't an official psychological intervention.
The point is that we often offer other people understanding that we deny ourselves.
What would happen if you spoke to yourself with the same combination of kindness, honesty and perspective?
The comparison trap
It's difficult to like yourself when you're constantly comparing your life with somebody else's.
There's always someone who appears fitter.
More successful.
More confident.
Better dressed.
More organised.
More financially secure.
More happily married.
Or apparently capable of producing beautifully balanced family meals while running a business and maintaining a spotless house.
And social media gives us unlimited opportunities to compare our ordinary lives with other people's carefully selected highlights.
We compare our bodies, careers, relationships, homes, holidays and achievements.
But comparisons are rarely fair.
We know the complicated reality of our own lives.
We generally see only fragments of other people's.
And there's another problem.
Even if you achieve the thing you're comparing yourself about, there will probably be somebody else who appears to have more.
It's a competition without a finish line.
Perhaps the question isn't whether you're doing as well as everyone else. Perhaps it's whether you're building a life that feels right for you.
The body you've spent years criticising
For many people, self-criticism is particularly intense when it comes to appearance.
We notice wrinkles.
Weight changes.
Grey hair.
Skin that no longer looks quite as it did twenty years ago.
And the peculiar phenomenon of discovering that certain body parts appear to have developed their own opinions about gravity.
Midlife can bring physical changes that challenge how we see ourselves.
But imagine looking at your body with a little more appreciation.
Not necessarily loving every aspect of its appearance.
Not pretending that ageing is always wonderful.
But recognising what your body allows you to do.
Walk.
Dance.
Hug people.
Play sport.
Travel.
Laugh.
Experience pleasure.
Live.
You can want to improve your fitness, strength or health without treating your body as an enemy.
And you don't need to wait until you look a certain way before allowing yourself to enjoy your life.
What if you stopped postponing happiness?
Have you ever caught yourself thinking:
"I'll feel better about myself when I lose some weight."
"I'll be happy when I've sorted out my career."
"I'll relax when the house is finished."
"I'll feel confident when I'm more successful."
"I'll enjoy life properly when everything is under control."
The difficulty is that life rarely reaches a point where absolutely everything is sorted.
There's usually another goal.
Another problem.
Another responsibility.
Another thing to improve.
If self-acceptance is always conditional on future achievement, it can remain permanently out of reach.
What if you allowed yourself to enjoy your life while you're still working things out?
What if you didn't need to earn your own approval?
Liking yourself doesn't mean liking everything you do
Self-acceptance isn't an excuse to avoid responsibility.
You might recognise that you've been unkind.
That you've neglected a relationship.
That you've made a poor decision.
That you've behaved in a way that doesn't reflect your values.
You can acknowledge these things honestly.
You can apologise.
Make amends.
Change your behaviour.
Learn.
But you don't have to conclude that you're fundamentally inadequate.
There's a difference between:
"I did something I regret."
And:
"I am someone who should feel ashamed of who I am."
One focuses on behaviour.
The other attacks identity.
You can hold yourself accountable without holding yourself in contempt.
The freedom of being a work in progress
Perhaps the most liberating idea is that you don't need to become a finished product.
You're allowed to be complicated.
You can be confident in some situations and insecure in others.
You can be generous and occasionally selfish.
You can be organised at work and hopeless at finding your car keys.
You can be emotionally intelligent and still lose your temper.
You can be a caring parent and occasionally dream of spending an entire weekend without anyone asking you for anything.
You can be ambitious and sometimes thoroughly unmotivated.
These things don't make you a failure.
They make you human.
And being human is a rather messy business.
Perhaps instead of striving to become a flawless version of yourself, you could become more comfortable being a real one.
What does the psychology tell us?
Several areas of research help explain why our relationship with ourselves matters.
Self-compassion and wellbeing: Research has found associations between self-compassion and lower levels of anxiety, depression and stress, although much of this evidence is correlational and doesn't establish that self-compassion alone causes these outcomes.
Self-compassion and motivation: Experimental research suggests that responding compassionately to personal mistakes can sometimes increase motivation to improve, rather than undermine it.
Self-criticism: Persistent, harsh self-criticism is associated with psychological distress and can contribute to unhelpful emotional patterns.
Social comparison: Comparing ourselves with others can influence how we evaluate our abilities, appearance and success.
Acceptance and psychological flexibility: Acceptance-based approaches explore how people can acknowledge difficult experiences while taking action guided by their values.
The research doesn't suggest that simply liking yourself will solve every problem.
But it challenges the assumption that harsh self-judgement is necessary for growth.
A little coaching reflection
Take some time to consider these questions.
1. How do I generally speak to myself?
Would I describe my inner voice as encouraging, critical, impatient, compassionate or something else?
2. What am I most critical of myself about?
My appearance, achievements, relationships, parenting, personality or something else?
3. Where did some of these expectations come from?
Are they genuinely mine, or have I absorbed them from other people or society?
4. What do I believe would happen if I became less self-critical?
Am I worried that I'd lose motivation or stop improving?
5. What qualities do I genuinely appreciate about myself?
Not just achievements. Think about character, values, humour, resilience and the way you treat others.
6. What would I say to a friend who felt the way I do?
Could I offer myself some of that same understanding?
7. What might I have more energy for if I spent less time criticising myself?
What could I enjoy, explore or pursue?
Try this: Change the conversation
For the next few days, notice when you're being particularly critical of yourself.
You don't need to monitor every thought.
Just pay attention when something catches your attention.
Write down one example.
What did I say to myself?
What happened just before that thought?
How did it make me feel?
What would I say to someone I care about in the same situation?
What might be a kinder, more balanced response?
For example:
Instead of "I'm useless at this", try:
"I'm learning something difficult. It's reasonable that I won't be brilliant immediately."
Instead of "I've completely ruined my progress", try:
"One difficult day doesn't undo everything I've been working towards."
Instead of "I look terrible", try:
"I'm having a difficult day with my appearance, but I don't need to let that decide what I do today."
The aim isn't forced positivity.
It's a more balanced and humane way of responding to yourself.
A final thought
Imagine reaching the end of your life and looking back.
What would you wish you'd spent less time doing?
Perhaps worrying about your weight.
Comparing yourself with other people.
Replaying embarrassing conversations.
Criticising your appearance.
Questioning whether you were successful enough.
Trying to become somebody else's idea of perfect.
And what might you wish you'd spent more time doing?
Laughing.
Learning.
Loving.
Trying new things.
Being present.
Enjoying the body and life you had, rather than endlessly wishing they were different.
Of course, we all have things we'd like to improve.
That's part of growing.
But perhaps you don't need to spend your life in a battle with yourself.
Perhaps you can recognise your imperfections without making them the most important things about you.
Perhaps you can be ambitious without being relentlessly dissatisfied.
Perhaps you can treat yourself with the same kindness you so readily offer other people.
What if you actually liked yourself — not someday, when you've finally sorted everything out, but now, while you're still figuring it all out?
Imagine how much energy you might get back.
And imagine what you could do with it.
You might even have enough left to tackle the cupboard full of clothes you've been meaning to sort out for the last seven years.
Although, frankly, there's no need to be too hard on yourself about that either.
Sources and further reading
Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-Compassion: An Alternative Conceptualization of a Healthy Attitude Toward Oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101.
MacBeth, A. & Gumley, A. (2012). Exploring Compassion: A Meta-Analysis of the Association Between Self-Compassion and Psychopathology. Clinical Psychology Review, 32(6), 545–552.
Breines, J. G. & Chen, S. (2012). Self-Compassion Increases Self-Improvement Motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143.
Festinger, L. (1954). A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140.
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D. & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change. Guilford Press.
Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind. Constable.
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