Being nicer to yourself is good business. Here’s why and how to start.
Let’s pretend for a moment. I’m my 2024 Self, chatting with my 2019 Self.
“You’re not going to believe this, but in 2024, you’ll be talking to clients (and an internet full of strangers) about the life-changing power of being kind to yourself.” The response? “Ha! That’s ridiculous.”
That’s because 2019-Me—the one who grew up hearing, “Life sucks and then you die,” whether or not it was meant ironically—didn’t see any version of me becoming an advocate for self-kindness, ever.
I was always on board with being kind to others. The problem is, that fails without balance. My old self would be rock-solid for others, but when I experienced disappointment, I would feel small, resentful, and storm away. I didn’t realize I was putting my happiness in the hands of others, while the aspect of my happiness that was most important and which I could actually control—my own self-talk—was completely intolerant and scathingly critical.
It took an epic breakup in my 30s for me to notice that practicing kindness externally and not internally actually produced destructive results. Unconsciously, by treating myself as unlovable on the inside, I’d been teaching the universe how to treat me. Boy, did it respond. Eventually, I realized I couldn't expect others to treat me well until I learned to do that for myself.
When love and respect are happening on the inside, what’s happening on the outside always matches. So, as I deepen my own healing journey, the more I embrace love and kindness, because they’re what want to offer the world.
When I started practicing self-compassion, my life and business got easier and better. I stepped into my life’s work, met and married the love of my life, became a homeowner, deepened relationships with family, created a prosperous, thriving business, and traveled to new parts of the world.
There are plenty of reasons practicing self-kindness will help you and your career. Here are three:
People pick up on your self-confidence and loving energy. Because loving energy and confidence are magnetic, people pick up on the shift inside you. Often that results in people seeking you out for or creating opportunities for you—sometimes even those that you’ve dreamed of attracting but didn’t know how to manifest.
2. Your relationships, even with those difficult colleagues, improve. Kindness attracts kindness, and because you’re focused on kindness, you create more of that. When you shift internally, you create a reservoir of goodwill that allows you to see others with greater compassion. You start thinking bigger about what’s possible.
3. You attract more money. When you’re practicing the internal energy of criticism, fault-finding, or blame, you send the message to the universe that you’re not desirable. That you’re not worthy. A simple shift to kindness rewires the message you’re sending to the universe of personal desirability and value. (Sometimes this also means you’ll suddenly attract a beautiful partnership).
The classic way to start this practice is to choose kinder thoughts, words, and actions toward yourself. If you’ve aced that or want a more creative approach, here are 3 simple exercises:
Without judgment, editing, or eye-rolling, spend 10 minutes committing to paper what it would mean, look, and feel like to truly experience self-kindness, at home and at work. Notice what feels like a stretch. Notice what is easy.
Remember a moment when you were kind to yourself, at work or in your personal life. What was that like? What happened right after? Did you allow yourself the moment, or did you justify, excuse, or feel guilty about it? Did someone else shame you for it?
Create a self-kindness experiment. Examine your list from #1 above and choose one thing. Create a self-kindness practice around this thing, such as imagining for three minutes a day what it would feel like. Before you start, note what you’re skeptical or worried about if anything. Do the experiment for at least five days, and document what happens each day. After the five days pass, reflect on your results, your original hopes and worries.
Determine what, if anything, you’d like to do with the data you gain from these three exercises. Let me know what you discover!
