Self-Compassion is the biggest thing I'll ever do.

I used to think berating and perfecting myself was the best way to get closer to my ideal self. After all, I figured that if I wasn't hard on myself then how would I motivate myself to get off my arse and go do that thing.

I thought berating and shaming myself was the antidote to procrastination. But oh boy, was I wrong. Compassion for your less than ideal self, is the only way forward. Shame will make you spiral downwards.

Berating myself just reconfirmed in my mind, all my worst fears..." I'm not xxx enough.. (Good, sexy, smart, committed, kind, selfless, virtuous).

New Mantra: Self-compassion is the biggest thing I'll ever do

So now my new mantra is Self compassion is the biggest thing I'll ever do.

Self-compassion is the most important, most prestigious, most glorious and impactful thing I'll ever do.

I'm someone who loves to achieve big, external goals and my identity used to be highly interconnected with how much and how many things I achieve. Once I achieve one goal, I'm already thinking about how I can achieve the next.

And at the end of it all, I'm left feeling empty because I was only ever doing all those things to feel more loved, get more attention, feel more beautiful, more accomplished, smarter, more worthy.

And now, I'm going to reframe my self talk and my achievements. My biggest, loftiest goal will be self-compassion. Brene Brown says 'loving yourself for who you are is one of the bravest things you can do."

I'm going to change the metric of my success to self-compassion. I'm going to catch myself everytime I hear the negative mind chatter in my head.."Get off the couch, you're being lazy...you'll never amount to anything great..everyone out there will think you're inferior if you're a stay-at-home-mum..what have you accomplished today? next to nothing... you have no clarity or commitment to your goals.."

I'm going to let self-compassion take over. Self-compassion will replace my negative self talk... things like "Self-compassion is the biggest thing you'll ever do..time fits me like a glove...everything unfolds eventually...risks are fun and it can be fun to fail...you're a messy, flawed imperfectly perfect human...."

What I want to do, is fully own my story of who I am, where I've come from, mistakes I've made, people I've hurt or disappointed and acknowledge my anger at those who have hurt me.

It's messy and flawed, but my life is perfect. There are some hard times riddled with uncertainty but I choose to see it as light and fluffy.