Does self-compassion benefit performance?

There are certain mental attributes that you’re sure to hear circling among athletes and coaches: motivation, grit, discipline, resilience, hustle. But self-compassion? I’m not sure that’s ever been mentioned on a football field. 

Self-compassion, put simply

Let’s start with the word’s Latin origin. “Com” means with and “passion” means suffering. So, compassion means how you are with suffering. When you’re going through a difficult period, are you demanding and harsh, engaging in negative self-talk? Or do you give yourself some grace and kindly guide yourself through the challenge?

Most of us, by virtue of being high-achievers, tend to be pretty hard on ourselves. In fact, we probably wouldn’t tell a friend or our children some of the things we tell ourselves. Unfortunately, we may be blocking ourselves from unlocking our next level of performance. Well get into that in a moment. First, let’s examine the three components of self-compassion.

The three elements of self-compassion

First, self-kindness. This element is probably the one most people think of when they hear self-compassion. It means that instead of judging our choices or beating ourselves up when we fail, we offer ourselves encouragement and support. 

Second, common humanity. It’s easy to feel alone when we’re going through a challenging period. But in fact, our struggle connects us with one another, rather than separates us. If we reframe it, we realize that everyone suffers; to varying degrees, yes, but suffering is part of the human experience.

Third, mindfulness. This one may not be obvious at first, but by adopting a state of mindfulness, we are able to create space between ourselves and the suffering we may be experiencing. We can accept our difficulty as a moment of time in our current reality instead of over-identifying with it.

What is the relationship between self-compassion and performance?

You may be thinking that this is all fine and good, but why does this matter? Put simply, what does self-compassion have to do with performance?

Well, let’s consider sport. It’s inherently a game of failure. Messing up or losing are par for the course. Even in artistic sports (yes, dance is a sport in my mind. A game it is not, but a sport? Yes.), perfection is elusive. Negative emotional experiences are normal in sport. But it’s how you move forward from them that matters.

Most athletes tend to judge themselves harshly when they fail. They also believe that high levels of self-criticism will motivate them to perform better in the future. However, research has shown that self-punishment actually impedes our ability to self-regulate and has a negative effect on performance. Self-compassion, on the other hand, enhances emotional stability, enabling you to look at negative experiences more objectively and recover from negative emotions much more quickly. 

Furthermore, research with athletes specifically has demonstrated that self-compassion helps cultivate thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that are beneficial to a productive stress response. It also helps remind athletes what they’re capable of while facing a challenge. In a recent study, athletes were asked to recall a sport failure and their emotional response was recorded. Athletes who scored higher on self-compassion measures had less negative emotion and recovered faster from those emotions than those who scored lower on the self-compassion scale. It seems that self-compassion prevents you from dwelling on negative emotions, which is critical for enhanced performance.

Tell me how this works

I thought you’d never ask. We’re all equipped with physiological resources to manage stress, which is mediated by the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). One component of the PNS is the vagus nerve. When our environment changes, inducing stress, the sympathetic nerve is activated. In contrast, the vagus nerve withdraws. The strength of this withdrawal response is referred to as vagal reactivity - and this indicates how well someone is able to cope with stress. In short, higher vagal reactivity correlates with good stress coping skills.

In summary

Self-compassion seems to increase vagal reactivity, which then fortifies our resilience to failure - a performance flex for any athlete.

Be kind to yourself, practice mindfulness to stay present and nonjudgmental, and then remember that you’re not alone in your experiences of failure.

Self-compassion may not come naturally, but as you start to shift your relationship with yourself in response to failure, you may just notice some performance enhancements.