Learning to respond to failure with self-compassion and curiosity, rather than self-punishment, is a challenge we all grapple with as we face life’s big decisions and unexpected turns.

But it’s not easy to do in a culture that often rewards perfectionism and promotes competition.

Associate Professor James Kirby is a clinical psychologist, Co-Director of the Compassionate Mind Research Group at UQ and Director of UQ's Clinical Psychology programs. As an author, researcher and speaker, Associate Professor Kirby advocates for practicing a more compassionate mindset to transform our relationship with our inner critic.

For our ongoing series 'the self-checkout', Contact asked Associate Professor Kirby to help us examine our responses to failure, and find more compassion for ourselves in those difficult moments.

The myth of self-critical motivation

Experiencing a setback, disappointment or failure is a painful experience. It’s particularly tough to lose out on something we care deeply about or fall short of a goal we’ve invested a lot of time and energy into. We can be angry with ourselves and with others, and this usually leads to a self-critical response.

We may attack ourselves through harsh self-talk with labels such as ‘loser’, ‘idiot’ or worse. This self-critical reaction is often so deeply ingrained that it’s automatic – we aren’t even fully aware we’re doing it in the moment.

Many people believe that self-criticism is a valuable motivator – that it’s the ‘kick’ they need to try harder. But research has found that when we label ourselves in those ways it actually compounds the threat and pain we experience for longer, ultimately diminishing both our motivation and our energy.

Choosing self-compassion: an evidence-based approach

Self-compassion is an alternative way to manage setbacks and those unavoidable moments where we don’t get what we’d hoped for. Research shows that this approach is more likely to help us sustain motivation over time.

In practice, self-compassion is about validating and encouraging ourselves when we experience pain or distress. Although this sounds simple enough, many of us actually face significant struggles with self-compassion, believing we need to be ‘punished’ first so we learn from our mistakes.

The 3-Circle Model: a simple exercise to assess your reactions to failure

In Compassion-Focused Therapy we often ask someone to draw their emotion systems using a scale called the 3-Circle Model. In this visualisation exercise, the circles represent 3 key systems at play in our responses to failure.

The threat system (red circle) is all about what we fear, including physical, social or evaluative threats (such as a fear of failure). These trigger powerful emotions like anger, anxiety and disgust.

The drive system (blue circle) is about pursuing the goals that are important to you. They could be building friendships, getting a promotion at work or obtaining that high distinction at university. When we achieve these goals, we feel excited, happy, joyous and proud.

And then there is the soothing system (green circle), which is less goal-focused and more about being content with things as they are. Emotions in this system are contentment, safety and calmness.

When we ask patients to draw these 3 circles in relation to how they experience failure, they often draw something like this:

The red circle dominates – first and foremost, people are annoyed and frustrated with the setback (and themselves). The blue circle is smaller as well, because they didn’t achieve their goal. Often, tellingly, the green circle is very small.

Flipping the script

Self-compassion is all about trying to activate that green circle in those moments of setback or failure. Most people rely on their red circle, directing self-criticism and anger towards themselves. And then they push themselves harder to reach their blue circle goals. So, most of us, including me, jump between red and blue circles in order to achieve.

The challenge here is to disrupt the pattern by focusing on the too-often missing green circle: the soothing system.

Let’s try a self-checkout exercise and work through this together by revisiting a moment when you experienced a painful sense of failure or setback, and exploring your reactions.

You might like to use the online 3-Circle Model tool to map out your 3 circles as you reflect (click and drag on the circles to adjust their size).

Ask yourself:
How did you feel in that moment of failure?

What did you say to yourself, and what was the tone of your self-talk?

When I explore these questions with patients, the most common responses are things like “I felt bad, angry and upset”. And the self-talk will be sentiments such as “what’s wrong with you?” or “why can’t you just do this?”. The tone can be quite aggressive – often with an element of disgust.

If your self-talk is similar when experiencing setback, this is not your fault, nor is it unusual. It’s extremely common. Indeed, I personally fall into this self-critical pattern often.

Ask yourself:
What activates your soothing system?

What makes you content, calm and grounded?

For many, this can be breathing or mindfulness practices – slowing down, meditating, even going for a brief walk or listening to some music. These things can all help to activate your green circle, grounding you in your mind and body.

From this more grounded position, it can be easier to reevaluate the way you see your setback. See if you can remind yourself of the efforts you made and what you might be able to do next time to help yourself succeed – whether that be reaching out to somebody for advice or re-evaluating your expectations.

But how can you bring this into your failure response and make your self-talk more self-compassionate? A great first step is to ask a very simple question:

Ask yourself:
If this happened to someone you care about, how would you feel towards them and what would you say?

Most of us would feel empathy. We'd want to remind them how great we think they are and encourage them to try again. This, of course, is a genuinely compassionate reaction. Once you understand how natural it is to express this compassion towards the failures of others, it can get easier to direct that to yourself.

Can you speak to yourself with that same friendly and supportive tone?

 

Don’t let these reflections become another avenue for self-punishment

Remember: it is not your fault if you get caught up in self-criticism when you fail. That's just your red circle becoming active and doing its thing. Don’t beat yourself up about this – after all, the point of the exercise is to move away from this kind of self-punishing thinking. What we want to learn to do is catch those responses in the act and intentionally strengthen our soothing system, our green circle.

See if you can start to bring more self-compassion into your daily life. Try using the 3-circle exercise in the moment next time you face a setback. Over time, the simple act of paying close attention to these strategies may lead to meaningful changes.