How to be a little bit kinder to yourself

Photo by Sean Mallia

Yesterday morning I woke up trying to plan how I was going to get everything done that needs to be done before Monday.

And of course this blog post was on my mind too.

Much as I love writing these posts, in the weeks when I’m really busy, the blog adds on one more thing that needs to be done.

And recently I’ve sort of developed two types of posts.

There are ones – like last week’s – in which I literally just write what’s on my mind or in my heart without much thought and planning.

And there are ones for the Inspirational People series which take a bit more thought and planning and also take a bit longer to put together (mostly because I do a bit of research, I run what I write by the person I’m writing about and I usually put in more photos).

Well the plan for today was to publish the second post in this Inspirational People series.

The old me would have insisted that once my original plan was to write that post, I must get it done no matter what.

That I shouldn’t write two of the same type of blog post in a row.

And that I had already mentioned to the people I’m writing about next that I would be writing about them.

But the new me is a little bit different.

I try to be less of a perfectionist and I also try to be a little bit kinder to myself.

I must admit it’s not something which comes easily to me.

I tend to be my own worst critic and I’m usually quite hard on myself.

But I must say I have improved in this.

Apart from giving me my life back, DNRS also really helped me with this.

As I was recovering after being chronically ill, I realised that I really wasn’t kind enough to myself.

And one trick I learned through DNRS is to practise speaking to myself the way I would to a friend or loved one.

So when I find myself being too hard on myself, expecting things to go exactly to plan or beating myself up over a mistake, I ask myself what I’d say if someone I love came to me in that situation.

And many times I would hypothetically be much more compassionate to my loved one than to myself.

Which is wrong.

Why shouldn’t we be a little bit more compassionate to ourselves too?

I can’t remember where but I also recently read that good enough is usually good enough.

And that made so much sense to me.

So often especially in the past, I’ve held myself to very high standards.

And as I said, yesterday – although my time was very limited – I could have insisted on writing the blog post I had originally planned to write.

But I decided to be a bit kinder.

I decided to write this blog post instead.

The Inspirational People post can wait till next week.

It definitely doesn’t make a difference in the larger scheme of things, and at least my day gets to be a bit calmer.

And so I invite you to be a little bit kinder to yourself this weekend too. 

To understand that maybe you’ve got a lot going on right now.

To know that it doesn’t matter if at times you don’t stick to those really high standards you set for yourself.

And just to be compassionate with yourself the way you would be with a friend or loved one.

And know that I’m always here cheering you on x x x