How To Stop Being So Hard On Yourself: 7 Ways To Give Yourself Grace

When someone you love makes a mistake, you can usually see the bigger picture. You remind them that they're human. You reassure them that one bad day doesn't define them. You tell them they don't have to have everything figured out.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to give other people grace but how difficult it can be to give that same grace to yourself?

But when it's you? Suddenly, the rules change.

You replay the mistake. You think about what you should have done differently. You focus on everything you didn't accomplish. You compare where you are to where you thought you'd be by now.

And before you know it, you're carrying around this load of pressure that you should be doing more, handling things better, or somehow be further along.

If you've been wondering how to stop being so hard on yourself, you have to learn how to give yourself grace.

We can start by asking ourselves 2 questions.

Why Am I So Hard on Myself?

Sometimes being hard on yourself can look like motivation. You tell yourself you just have high standards. You want to be responsible. You care about doing things well.

None of those things are necessarily bad. But there comes a point when high standards turn into unrealistic expectations and accountability turns into constant self-criticism. You might notice thoughts like:

"I should be doing more."

"I shouldn't have made that mistake."

"Everyone else seems to be handling this better than I am."

"I should be further along by now."

"Why can't I just get it together?"

The tricky thing about thoughts like these is that when you've repeated them enough, they start to feel like facts. When they're not.

Often, they're expectations you've created for yourself without stopping to ask whether they're actually fair. And sometimes those expectations are impossible to meet.

You expect yourself to know things before you've had the opportunity to learn them. You expect yourself to have the same capacity during difficult seasons that you had during easier ones. You expect yourself to make the right decision every time. Then, when you inevitably fall short of those expectations, you criticize yourself for being human.

That's where grace comes in.

What Does It Mean to Give Yourself Grace?

Giving yourself grace means allowing yourself to be human without treating your humanity like a character flaw.

It means acknowledging that you're going to make mistakes. You're going to have limitations. There will be days when you don't get everything done. There will be seasons when your best looks different than it used to.

Grace gives you permission to recognize those things without immediately turning them into criticism.

And as Christians, grace shouldn't be a foreign concept to us. We build our faith around a God who gives grace freely, yet sometimes we struggle to extend even a fraction of that grace toward ourselves.

Ephesians 2:8 reminds us:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."

Grace is a gift. You don't earn it by getting everything right.

And I think sometimes we need to remember that when it comes to the way we treat ourselves, too. So if you've been especially hard on yourself lately, here are seven ways you can begin practicing grace instead.

1. Pay Attention to the Way You Talk to Yourself

One of the first steps toward practicing self-compassion is simply noticing your inner dialogue.

What do you say to yourself when you make a mistake?

What about when you look in the mirror?

When you don't finish your to-do list?

When something doesn't work out the way you hoped?

Sometimes we don't realize how harsh our internal dialogue has become because we're so used to hearing it. Try catching the thought before immediately accepting it.

Instead of:

"I'm such a failure."

Try:

"I'm disappointed this didn't work out the way I wanted."

Those aren't the same statement. The second describes an experience. The first turns that experience into an identity. Giving yourself grace doesn't mean pretending you're not disappointed. It means refusing to turn every disappointment into a reason to tear yourself down.

2. Question Your "Shoulds"

One of my favorite things to pay attention to is the word should.

I should be further along.

I should have more energy.

I should know what I'm doing.

I should be over this by now.

I should be able to handle this.

Should, should, should.

Whenever you catch yourself using "should," pause and ask:

According to who?

Where did that expectation come from?

Is it realistic for the season you're currently in?

Would you expect the same thing from someone you love?

If you just took a moment to evaluate the pressures you allow yourself to carry, you may realize that a lot of them are expectations you've picked up along the way—from other people, from comparison, from past versions of yourself, or even from ideas you've created about what your life "should" look like.

And when you start questioning those expectations, you may find that you don't actually have to carry all of them.

3. Talk to Yourself Like Someone You Love

I know this advice may sound simple, but actually putting it into practice can be uncomfortable.

The next time you're criticizing yourself, imagine someone you deeply love sitting across from you saying the same exact things about themselves. What would you tell them? Would you say:

Yeah, you're right. You really should have done better.

Probably not. You'd likely remind them of the context. You'd acknowledge what they're going through. You'd encourage them to learn from what happened without allowing it to define them.

That's compassion. And you are allowed to offer it to yourself too.

Sometimes giving yourself grace looks like asking: 

"What would I say to someone I love if they were experiencing this?"

And then being willing to receive those same words yourself.

4. Separate Growth From Punishment

This is an important one. Giving yourself grace does not mean refusing to take accountability. You can admit:

"I shouldn't have handled that situation that way."

You can apologize. You can make a different decision next time. You can grow.

What you don't have to do is punish yourself in order for that growth to count. Beating yourself up doesn't automatically make you more accountable. In fact, constant self-criticism can sometimes make growth harder because so much of your energy goes toward shame instead of figuring out what you actually want to do differently.

Grace says:

"I can take responsibility for what happened without deciding that what happened defines who I am."

You are allowed to grow without hating the version of yourself who is still becoming.

5. Let Your Best Look Different in Different Seasons

Your capacity is not going to look the same every day. There will be seasons when you have energy to give to your work, relationships, goals, routines, and everything else you care about.

And there will be seasons when getting through the day takes more out of you.

Both versions of you are worthy of grace.

One of the easiest ways to become hard on yourself is to compare your current capacity to a previous season.

I used to work out five days a week. I used to keep the house cleaner. I used to be more productive. I used to pray more consistently.

Maybe. But what else has changed?

Your responsibilities may have changed. Your relationships may have changed. Your body may have changed. Your emotional capacity may have changed. Your life may simply require something different from you right now, and that’s okay.

Instead of asking: 

"Why can't I do what I used to do?"

Try asking: 

"What does taking care of myself well look like in this season?"

Those questions lead to very different answers.

6. Stop Confusing Perfection With Faithfulness

I think this can be especially difficult when you're a Christian. Sometimes perfectionism sneaks into our faith and disguises itself as wanting to "do the right thing."

We want to be a good Christian. A good spouse. A good parent. A good friend. A good employee. A good person.

And somewhere along the way, "good" quietly becomes "perfect" instead. But God never asked you to prove your worth by getting everything right.

Your relationship with God isn't a performance review. You don't have to pray perfectly. You don't have to navigate every situation perfectly. You don't have to respond perfectly every time.

Faithfulness leaves room for growth. It leaves room for repentance. It leaves room for questions. And most importantly, it leaves room for grace.

When you notice yourself thinking, "I should be a better Christian", consider replacing that thought with an affirmation:

"I'm still growing here, and God is still with me in the process."

7. Practice Grace Before You Feel Like You Deserve It

This might be the hardest one. Because sometimes we don’t give ourselves grace until AFTER we've fixed the problem.

Once we're more disciplined. Once we stop making that mistake. Once we accomplish the goal. Once we're finally doing "better." But that's not really grace.

Grace isn't something you receive after you've proven that you deserve it. That's what makes it grace.

Maybe today you didn't get everything done. Maybe you lost your patience. Maybe you made a decision you wish you could redo. Maybe you're struggling with something you thought you'd have figured out by now.

You can acknowledge all of that. And then you can choose not to make yourself suffer for being imperfect. Take the lesson. Make the repair if one is needed. Ask God for help. And then allow yourself to move forward.

Remember first and foremost, grace is a gift from God given to us out of love not out of how deserving we believe ourselves to be.

Want to Practice Giving Yourself More Grace?

You don't have to change the way you speak to yourself overnight. Sometimes it starts with simply noticing, practicing, and choosing a different response one moment at a time.

If you'd like some help putting what you just read into practice, join me for 5 Days of Practicing Grace. For five days, I'll send you one small practice each day to help you recognize self-criticism, loosen unrealistic expectations, and respond to yourself with a little more grace.