Introducing Self-Compassion Within a Team
It is no secret that I believe in the power of self-compassion with it comes to sport and performance psychology. Many times the question that is asked is if self-compassion hampers the competitive edge. The answer is no. Self-compassion does not mean that you can't push yourself and acknowledge your mistakes. Rather, it means that you do not tear yourself down when you are pushing yourself. It is counterproductive to tear yourself down when you need to build self-efficacy and self-confidence. So today’s self-compassion post is written in the context of helping a team. But, let’s begin by introducing self-compassion to keep everyone on the same page.
Self-Compassion
Kristen Neff (2023) defined three elements that comprise self-compassion, self-kindness vs. self-judgment, common humanity vs. isolation, and mindfulness vs. over-identification. The element of self-kindness vs. self-judgment is described by Neff (2023) as how self-compassionate people accept imperfection and understand that life has difficult experiences, which results in increased emotional serenity. Community vs. isolation. Neff (2023) defines this as when people embrace inadequacy and understand suffering is part of the human experience rather than seeing these experiences as something that only happens to them as individuals. Finally, Neff (2023) writes about mindfulness vs. over-identification as the need to find a balanced way to understand what are considered negative feelings so they are neither squashed nor inflated and instead held with mindfulness instead of over-identification. In a study by Kuchar et al. (2023), they introduced an online self-compassion intervention called RESET (Resilience and Enhancement in Sport, Exercise, & Training) to NCAA student-athletes. The research demonstrated increased self-compassion, decreased self-criticism and the fear of self-compassion, and more significant gains in perceived performance.
To introduce self-compassion to a team, it helps to consider obtaining buy-in from the coach and a team leader to become advocates for the work. The first step to deploying lessons on self-compassion is to have the coach's support. To obtain the necessary support, time must be invested to build the relationship between a consultant and coach, if a sport and performance consultant is used. Sharp and Hodge (2013) suggest that an effective relationship between a coach and consultant consists of demonstrating consultant knowledge, building trust, and possibly developing a friendship. Once a strong working relationship is established, the chances of obtaining support and buy-in from the team increase. The following essential person to gain support from an identified team leader, a person on the team that the rest of the players respect. To gain their support means beginning the self-compassion lessons with the identified leader so that this person can vocalize support so that other athletes will be more willing to learn about self-compassion. Ultimately, the approach is working with individuals versus the whole team initially. Why? Because there are a couple of considerations. Everyone will have a different relationship with self-compassion and could potentially be triggered. Additionally, this allows the time and space for individuals to explore the concept before adding the additional element of team dynamics. Bringing the team together to work on self-compassion may mean helping the team members learn how they could eventually begin to hold each other accountable for practicing self-compassion when they notice other players falling into perfectionist tendencies or when they begin to beat themselves up when they fail to trust themselves and their skills. The team culture could evolve in that direction. Added bonus is that the opportunity to engage in communication building skill sets with a team also emerges because providing feedback is skill.
Football team in red, black, and white uniforms playing a football game.
take action today moment:
How can you invite more self-compassion into your daily life? Your sporting life? Within your interactions with others? Take some time to think about this mindfully about this, rather than brushing it aside. Self-compassion is vital for the self and engagement with others. Sounds counterintuitive, but it is true. Self-compassion is important for relationships too!
Learn More About self-compassion:
Self-Compassion - Kristen Neff
Self‐Compassion in Sport and Exercise (Yes, it is an article!)
References
Kuchar, A. L., Neff, K. D. & Mosewich, A. D. (2023). Resilience and Enhancement in Sport,
Exercise, & Training (RESET): A brief self-compassion intervention with NCAA student-athletes. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 67, 102426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2023.102426
Neff, K. D. (2023). Self-compassion: Theory, method, research, and intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 74, 193-218. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-032420-031047
Sharp, L. A., & Hodge, K. (2013). Effective sport psychology consulting relationships: Two coach case studies. The Sport Psychologist, 27(4), 313-324.