“I’m super excited to introduce you to this week’s guest blogger. She is a long-time friend and expert in the field of holding space and self-compassion. Breanna is a life coach, yoga instructor, and an amazing human being. Enjoy this inspiring article! If you are interested in diving deeper into mindset and self-compassion work Breanna offers 1:1 mindset and life coaching, and group coaching online for women. To learn more about how you can work with Breanna, visit her here.”
– Ashley, OT & Co-founder Therabyte
3 Self Compassion Practices to Boost Your Business
I know what you’re probably thinking, “How is self-compassion going to impact my business?” There was a time I would have thought this too. How can being kind to myself improve my business? The truth is that practicing self-compassion is going to help you show up for your business with more awareness, intention, and motivation.
What is self-compassion?
Let’s first define what self-compassion actually is. Self-compassion is meeting ourselves with kindness in times of suffering, the same as we would give kindness to a friend or loved one. For many of us, we likely grew up being self-critical or judgmental of our shortcomings and struggles, believing it would help us to learn and “do better” next time. Think for a moment about how well being critical and judgmental of yourself is actually serving you? How is it helping you to move past your “failures”? How is it supporting you in achieving your goals?
When we are critical of ourselves we can start to believe in these judgmental thoughts. Our minds begin to think that we aren’t capable, that we are going to fail, and we probably shouldn’t even try! Does this sound familiar to you? Let’s see what this would look like if instead, you were to approach yourself with compassion in a moment of struggle,
An Example
Let’s say your business isn’t growing as fast as you’d like, self-compassion can support you in creating space for the uncomfortable feelings that arise when you perceive that you are failing, and also support you in navigating different ways to find your way through these challenges.
Let me share with you three self-compassion practices that can help change your thoughts, experiences, and even the outcome of a challenging situation.
3 Self-Compassion Practices
1. Noticing & Validating struggles. Before we can do anything else, awareness is key. We must first be open to noticing the struggle and validate to ourselves that this moment is hard. Using self-compassion phrases can be helpful in calming our mind and emotions, while also being honest and real about our struggles. Helpful phrases are:
- “It’s natural to feel afraid, this is something new.”
- “It makes sense to feel failure right now, this was really important to me.”
- “This experience is hard and I will get through it.”
2. Curiosity. Practising curiosity is key to understanding what happened to us, why a situation was so triggering, and how we can move forward from it. There are times when being curious about our emotions and thoughts can feel overwhelming, or scary, there is an element of the unknown, and this can be very uncomfortable for our brains. Self-compassion helps to create a safe space for us to get more curious about our limiting thoughts and uncomfortable emotions. Some powerful questions to ask yourself to spark curiosity are:
- “What is the story I’m telling myself about this situation?”
- “What is this emotion trying to communicate to me?”
- “What about this situation was so hard for me?”
3. What do I need? The most foundational question around self-compassion is “What do I need?” This question can be asked throughout the process of understanding your suffering and emotions better.
- What do you need if you’re feeling fear?
- What do you need when you’re thinking you’ve failed?
- What do you need when you wonder if you should give up?
Once you’ve discovered what you need at the moment, ask yourself what you need moving forward in this situation. If your business isn’t growing at the rate you want it to, once you’ve validated and become curious about the emotions and thoughts you’re having, you are now in a more regulated and grounded place to think, problem-solve, and see solutions to your challenges.
You’ve got this!
There’s such high value placed on performance and achievement in our society, and it’s essential to remember you are going to experience challenges and struggles in the process of building a successful business. Not only is it ok, but it will benefit you much more in your growth if you allow yourself the space to notice, validate, be curious, understand what you need, and hold compassion for yourself as you journey through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and life! Remember, “What resists persists.”
Reach out and let’s start helping you shift how you view yourself with your business.
Breanna Livingstone,
Life Coach © and Yoga Instructor ©
PS: Try Therabyte for yourself, sign up for a FREE trial today!
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