Compassion vs Complacency

"If I just tell myself it's okay when I fail, what is going to motivate me to do better??"

This is something a client asked me when I pointed out that her self-talk about the possibility of failure in an upcoming exam was downright MEAN.

And it's a question so many of us grapple with in one way or another.

When we forget to send an important email to a patient or we misjudge a diagnosis of a patient, telling ourselves it's "okay" feels like we're condoning subpar work. Like we're accepting low standards from ourselves.

And this is a topic I covered in this week's podcast episode called When You Fail (Compassion vs Complacency), which you can access below:

But one of the things I want to emphasise in this email about this line of questioning is the implication that without making ourselves feel terrible, we wouldn't have the motivation to change.

This points to a fundamental lack of trust in our intrinsic desire to do things well. Our natural desire to strive for excellence, to grow and develop. Our sense of satisfaction when we do things well or improve. Our desire to serve our patients better, to be better employees or business owners.

These desires are an intrinsic part of our human nature.

In other words, you'd do better ANYWAY.

Consider for a moment that the mean self-talk has actually NOT been the thing that has motivated you to do better in the past but has actually just been an extra, unnecessary layer you've added that does nothing other than make you feel crap.

And that without this layer of crap, it would actually be soooo much easier to do better because you'd get out of the hole of doom much faster. There's a reason self-compassionate people are more resilient, motivated and gritty.

So, dear clinician, what if you got to feel loved and supported when you failed AND you still did the hard work of doing better next time?

I dare you to try it 😉