Tag: compassion

Kindness when you fall off the wagon

Posted on by philipdodson

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Making changes in your life is more about kindness and compassion to yourself on the days that you fall off the wagon, than it is on the days you stay on.

The tendency is to beat ourselves up for the one day we fail at sticking to a new habit, we focus on that failure rather than the other days that we successfully carried on down the path of bravery to make a change.

Many people fear taking those first steps towards change let alone sticking at it, so when there is that odd slip, pat yourself on the back and remember that change is all about a series of small regular steps. It is not about perfection, it is about commitment.

Commitment can only come if you are kind to yourself, as reproaching yourself brings in seeds of doubt and fear of failure.

Don’t forget you are human

Posted on by philipdodson

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In life, when we are bombarded from all directions with advice, tips, recommendations, directives and instruction, it is easy to forget that we are all human. We are not precision engineered machines, that simply are programmed to do every single thing correctly.

In fact, even the best machines, or pieces of software, or automation, break down. Nothing is perfect, thankfully.

However, there is more pressure than ever to be faultless, to not say the wrong thing, to play safe to avoid mistakes.

We can also get drawn into the blame game and look for others to deflect blame onto, in order to protect ourselves.

It is important to recognise that others are only human too.

We will all have off days, we will all feel a little down at times, we will all have our challenges and that’s OK. In fact it is more than OK, it’s normal, we can choose not to allow the pressures or the criticism from others take that away. Equally, we need to be compassionate to others and use empathy, not criticism.

Be kind to yourself and others.