The Role of Self-Compassion in Overcoming Setbacks and Cultivating Mental Toughness
The Bulletproof Musician
How Do Competitive Athletes Transition From Self Critical to Self Compassionate?
A team of canadian researchers conducted a qualitative interview based exploration of how 11 competitive athletes who previously identified as being excessively self critical, successfully adopted a more self compassionate perspective. The first theme centered around coaching, as coach's behaviors either fostered self compassion or made it more difficult for athletes to be more self compassionate. Some coaches created an environment that enabled athletes to try new things without fear of judgment if they were fail sara expressed feeling a sense of calmness, comfortability and freedom during practice. Meanwhile, other coaches were excessively negative and critical which led athletes to internalize this kind of thinking and become more self critical following a poor perform ments.
