Allow yourself to fully dive into the sensation of dread or lethargy or whatever is coming up for you when you think about the task. Can you feel the emotions in your body, holding them in nonjudgmental, mindful awareness?

There’s nothing wrong with occasionally indulging yourself, of course. Sometimes eating that piece of lemon cheesecake is actually a form of self-care. But overindulgence (i.e., eating the whole cheesecake) doesn’t feel good. It’s counterproductive because it prevents us from getting what we really want: to reach our highest potential.

Self-criticism serves as a submissive behavior because it allows us to abase ourselves before imaginary others who pronounce judgment over

friends. In sum, the study found that self-compassionate people are better able to create close, authentic, and mutually supportive friendships than those who are self-critical.

other hand, are more likely to throw in the towel. Self-compassionate people have also been found to procrastinate less than those lacking self-compassion. This is partly because they report being less worried about how others view their performances, and thus don’t require a plausible excuse for failing.

As you might suspect, our research finds that self-compassionate people are more likely to have learning rather than performance goals.

Instead of trying to control ourselves and our lives to obtain a perfectionistic ideal, why not embrace life as it is—both the light and the shadow? What adventures might follow if we free ourselves in this way?

we start to recognize how much we skew our perceptions of the world in order to feel better about ourselves.

Our research indicates that self-compassionate people tend to be more authentic and autonomous in their lives, whereas those who lack self-compassion tend to be more conformist because they don’t want to risk social judgment or rejection.