How to motivate yourself with compassion to do something hard

Life is filled with challenges, but how do you face the REALLY tough challenges?

For a lot of people, and for men especially, we’re told to MAN UP and JUST DO IT. Women are often praised as “good girls” and “good wives” for sucking it up and not complaining.

The result is that many of us believe we have to push down our feelings to overcome great challenges.

And it kind of works, although we risk losing touch with our feelings if we keep pushing them away.

So how can we face really tough challenges with compassion and acceptance for all our messy emotions?

You can use what I call the In My Shoes Strategy.

The “In My Shoes Strategy”

I’ve used this method to start some of the scariest, most vulnerable conversations I’ve ever had with Sunaina. I’ve also recently used it to face overwhelming anxiety and get a liver biopsy that I’d been dreading for months.

Here’s how the strategy works:

First, I imagine my daughter in my shoes — in other words, in the EXACT SAME situation that I’m struggling in now — and then I ask myself, “What do I want her to be able to do?”

That’s it.

When I was preparing for a liver biopsy, I pictured my daughter all grown up and just as terrified and anxious as I felt.

I knew I wouldn’t want her to ignore her fear, but I also wouldn’t want her to give up without trying. I’d want her to be able to accept her anxiety and search for the strength to get the biopsy.

So that’s what I did, and it helped me find the strength I needed.

You don’t need to be a parent to use the In My Shoes Strategy. You can think of anyone you care about deeply, like your partner, parent, or a friend.

Once you have someone in mind, picture them in your shoes, facing the exact same situation that you’re in. Then ask yourself, “What do I want them to be able to do?”

We all deserve compassion

Even after using this method, you still might not be able to do the hard thing. That happens sometimes.

Let’s pretend that I wasn’t able to make myself get a biopsy.

Most likely I’d want to beat myself up for chickening out. But how would I react if my daughter was in my shoes? I’d want her to know that sometimes we might need more time to do hard things and that’s OK.

That’s a pretty different message, right?

During tough challenges we often have more compassion for our loved ones than we do for ourselves. But if we can imagine those loved ones in our shoes, we can start treating ourselves with the same compassion that we offer the people we care most about.

And we all deserve to be treated that way.

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