The Science Behind Self-Compassion

How You Talk To Yourself Matters

The other day, I worked out with different trainers and their clients in a shared gym.

It just happened to be a day I forgot my headphones and was exposed to three or four other coaches’ conversations during their training sessions.

A client and coach working out next to me were training hard — circuits, modestly heavy weights, and minimal rest times.

The client—who mentioned she’d been overworked and stressed, running on little sleep, and tired—started feeling defeated about 20 minutes into the workout.

At this point, to her credit, she kept exercising but told her trainer:

“I can’t do this exercise. I’m not good at it.”

To which her trainer almost reflexively responded:

“Don’t say that about yourself — your language matters! Talk to yourself more positively.”

I found this to be an incredibly profound coaching moment that I don’t think all trainers get the chance to dive into with their clients.

First, it was a moment of raw transparency from the client.

Instead of just thinking, “I am struggling, I can’t do this, and I’m not enjoying this feeling,” she actively voiced this frustration to her coach, which takes some guts, especially in a gym full of other people.

Refer a friend to my Substack HERE.

Second, it was an astute response from the coach, certainly not his first rodeo in mindset coaching.

Where many trainers might have said, “That’s okay,” this particular trainer chose to tell her to reframe her negative thoughts.

The Science Behind Self-Compassion

The “it’s okay” way of consoling clients is easy to default to, but in all my years of coaching, it hasn’t quantifiably helped the problem of negative self-talk.

A trainer might feel they’re reaching outside of their scope when coaching someone to talk better to themselves, but this is not the case.

Anyone critical of themselves will tell you that negative self-talk does not work despite the countless times they’ve criticized their mistakes.

Unfortunately, it’s hard-wired into our brains.

“In short, self-criticism is an evolved strategy to stay part of the in-group to survive,” says Brooke Schwartz, a licensed Psychotherapist and author at Psyche.co

“I see this often in my work with clients: they believe that the harsher they are on themselves, the more motivated to change – and consequently accepted by others – they’ll be. If they just push themselves harder in the face of painful emotions, they’ll come out the other side stronger. If they hold themselves to impossible standards, they’re sure to meet them eventually.”

Schwartz says this is rarely the case.

Negative self-talk tricks the brain into thinking we have control of our emotions, but that feeling of power is an illusion. The anger we feel towards ourselves represses the genuine emotion we need to express when feeling defeated: self-acceptance.

This reflects “a core tenet of behaviorism,” which is that punishment, historically, has never been as beneficial for behavior as positive reinforcement.

Research from The University of Sheffield (U.K.) shows that a simple word switch — self-compassion instead of self-esteem — helps us fare better mentally and physically.

Subjects in the study who exhibited self-compassion were less sick, experienced less pain, and even slept better.

Think about this the next time you talk down to yourself about missing a workout or even feel compelled to skip one because of some extenuating circumstances.

Talking To Yourself During Workouts

You might think waking up sore from yesterday’s workout is a reason to skip the gym today.

And that might be true!

The key here is to decide on your mindset regarding that skipped session.

Are you feeling guilty about missing it?

Why?

Is that your inner critic talking?

Have you considered talking with that critic about why they’re so hard on you?

If you’re in an excellent training rhythm, it can be easy to criticize yourself for missing a day.

This can snowball into an unhealthy self-talk cycle that compounds into less self-compassion.

This also applies to the healthier gym-goers who fall into the “over-achiever” bucket.

If you miss a rep, fail a lift, or feel too tired to complete an exercise, you have two options.

1. Accept that your fatigue is real; the next day, when you feel confident enough to train hard, it will improve.
2. Deny the story your critical self may be telling you and push through to find the endorphin rush.

Both options can be correct on a given day.

Both require hard work to come to those conclusions.

Don’t avoid the hard work.