Whether or not you are into new year’s resolutions, you are likely pursuing goals that matter to you. Today I want to share something I’ve learned about actually making progress on meaningful goals. Towards the end, I’ll also invite you to set an intention for your work with self-compassion.

What you practice grows stronger

In her inspiring TEDx talk on the power of mindfulness, researcher Shauna Shapiro narrates the story of how she ended up at a monastery in Thailand because her life, as she knew it, seemed over. She was hoping mindfulness would help her move forward. But when she started practicing mindfulness, she found that she couldn’t get her mind to stay in the present moment. She was full of criticism and judgment about how bad she was at meditating.

When she brought her concerns to the attention of a monk, he said: “Oh dear, you’re not practicing mindfulness! You’re practicing judgment, impatience, frustration.” And then he said five words that stuck with Shapiro: “What you practice grows stronger.” She learned that mindfulness wasn’t just about paying attention, but also about being kind to oneself in the process.

Whether or not we are aware of it, we’re all practicing something in our lives. You may be practicing being grateful or loving or kind, or you may be practicing anger or judgment or criticism. Some of this is helpful, some of it is not. The point is that our minds are always at work – practicing something. And therefore, growing something.

After returning from Thailand, Shapiro started studying mindfulness. In working with people from various walks of life, she found that they had one thing in common: an inherent sense of “not being good enough,” of feeling ashamed about parts of who they were. More often than not, this is what they were practicing – judging, criticizing, and shaming themselves. Many of them were doing so in the hopes that this approach would help them change, that somehow, by beating themselves up, they were going to transform their lives. But that doesn’t happen.

When we feel ashamed, our brains are deprived of the energy and the capacity for true learning and growth. In other words, as Shapiro insists: when it comes to true transformation, shame doesn’t work.

How I am Cultivating Forgiveness

I have seen this happen in my own life. A few years ago, I realized that I wasn’t very good at forgiveness. I found it hard to let go and move on. I knew, intellectually, that forgiving people would be good for me, and that it would bring me peace. But I was unable to find true, genuine forgiveness in my heart for some people. And I was doing what many of us do. I was constantly beating myself up for it: How can you be so unforgiving? Why can’t you find love and compassion in your heart? What kind of a person holds a grudge for so long? But no amount of shaming myself was helping me with forgiveness.

It wasn’t until I turned to self-compassion that things began to shift. With self-compassion, I replaced my judgmental and critical self-talk with words of acknowledgment and empathy: I know you’re in pain because you’ve been hurt in the past. Forgiveness is hard. I love you.

In all honesty, this felt weird at first. What was I doing talking to myself like this, saying “I love you” to myself? But the truth was, I was talking to myself all the time! If I could say things like “something’s wrong with you” to myself, what was so strange about saying I love you? So I decided to keep practicing.

Over a few weeks, I started noticing a softening in my heart. As I related to my own pain with love and compassion, I could see, at a deeper level, that the people who had hurt me were also imperfect human beings who made mistakes, experienced pain, and suffered. When I could meet myself with compassion, I could meet others with compassion too. Gradually, forgiveness just started happening. More naturally and effortlessly than it had ever before.

Forgiveness isn’t a deep, integral part of who I am – yet. But I can tell you with certainty, I have made more progress through self-compassion in a few weeks than I did with self-judgment in several years.

Over to you

What do you want to grow in your life?

For this exercise, I encourage you to go with your heart rather than with your mind. Choose something that deeply matters to you, something that you want to cultivate not because you “should” but because you really, really want to. Because you know in your bones that it will bring you more peace and happiness.

Do you have an answer?

If yes, great. That’s the thing you can work towards when you practice self-compassion.

If you don’t have an answer for what you want to grow, that’s okay too. You can simply say that you want to build more awareness about what you want. Or that you want to learn how to be kind to yourself.

The important thing here is that as we move forward on this journey of self-compassion, you have a clear reason for why you’re doing this.