Drop Self-Improvement and Embrace Self-Compassion

Source http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/olkjeCWDOcw/

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ~Carl Rogers

When was the last time you stopped trying to improve something about yourself or your life?

I’ve spent a lot of my life chasing goals. I guess it goes with the territory as a cancer survivor who always felt like she had something to prove, even twenty years later.

For everything the doctors told me I could not do because of my Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (or as a result of the chemotherapy that healed me), I gave my all to accomplish and strive until I’d shown them they were wrong.

Can’t run a marathon because you’ve incurred lung damage? “You can do anything you set your mind to” was my mantra to run not just one, but five marathons.

Except that guess what? I was not just a goal setter. I was a perpetually unsatisfied goal setter. No matter what I did, or how much I told myself I was engaging in “healthy striving” as Brené Brown writes, it was never enough.

I thought that I’d put my goal-s…

Source http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/olkjeCWDOcw/

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ~Carl Rogers

When was the last time you stopped trying to improve something about yourself or your life?

I’ve spent a lot of my life chasing goals. I guess it goes with the territory as a cancer survivor who always felt like she had something to prove, even twenty years later.

For everything the doctors told me I could not do because of my Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (or as a result of the chemotherapy that healed me), I gave my all to accomplish and strive until I’d shown them they were wrong.

Can’t run a marathon because you’ve incurred lung damage? “You can do anything you set your mind to” was my mantra to run not just one, but five marathons.

Except that guess what? I was not just a goal setter. I was a perpetually unsatisfied goal setter. No matter what I did, or how much I told myself I was engaging in “healthy striving” as Brené Brown writes, it was never enough.

I thought that I’d put my goal-s…

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