Lily Altamirano
In a world that constantly demands perfect grades, a perfect appearance, and a perfect life, urging you to optimize your time, build a remarkable résumé, manage your emotions, and fix your weaknesses, the pressure to be outstanding is always at two hundred percent. It keeps you up late studying for next week’s presentation, or pushes you to procrastinate by scrolling on your phone because the anxiety feels overwhelming. Maybe, because you worry about your performance, you’re constantly comparing yourself to others. They seem more motivated, more balanced, more certain, even on good days, you feel like what you’re doing is never enough.
For many college students, this sense of “not enough” can be a constant background noise that takes an emotional toll. And while growth is essential to human development, what happens when being human starts to feel like failing? College is not only a place where you learn subjects and skills for a future career; it is also where you begin to discover who you are and how to relate and care for yourself. And for many students, the relationship with the self becomes more shaped by pressure than by care.
Understanding Perfectionism
Perfectionism often develops in environments where approval feels conditional and mistakes come at a high cost. In these settings outcomes become highly predictable, and people learn that one’s worth is tied to “good performance” (Curran & Hill, 2019).
Over time, this leads individuals to understand perfectionism simply as having “high standards.” However, for many students, striving to be perfect is not about wanting to be excellent; it’s about wanting to feel safe. Perfectionism becomes a survival strategy rather than a personality trait. It helps protect against rejection, failure, and the painful sense of not being “good enough.” Studies often show links between perfectionism and chronic self-criticism to anxiety, depression, burnout, and avoidance (Curran & Hill, 2019; Frost et al., 1990).
The Cost of Self-Criticism
As a student you must be familiar with the inner critic. It often shows up when you receive a grade lower than expected, miss a deadline, feel unproductive, or face social challenges. It might say things like “You’re not trying hard enough”, “Other people are doing better”, “Mistakes mean I’m a failure”. This harsh inner voice is meant to motivate you, but in reality, it operates through threat and shame.
When our brain perceives a threat it activates a stress response. The body reacts by narrowing your attention and intensifying our emotions. For the inner critic, mistakes feel dangerous. According to compassion-focused psychology, chronic self-criticism activates the brain’s threat system, increasing stress, making emotional regulation more difficult (Gilbert, 2009). While this can feel motivating in the short term, in the long run it leads to exhaustion, avoidance and a greater vulnerability to developing mental health difficulties such as depression and chronic anxiety (Gilbert, 2009; Neff, 2003).
Think about it, if self-attack truly fostered positive growth, many students would feel confident, focused, and fulfilled. Instead, many feel anxious, mentally and physically drained due to constant stress. With this awareness, an important question arises, if fear does not help you grow, what might?
Self-Compassion: A Different Way of Relating to Yourself
Self-compassion does not mean lowering standards, making excuses, or avoiding responsibility. Rather, self-compassion acknowledges that suffering is part of the human experience and teaches us how to notice it and relate to ourselves and our experiences in a different way, that is with kindness instead of punishment (Neff, 2003).
In a world where we constantly evaluate ourselves, many students learn to relate to themselves through comparison and correction. Emotions become problems to solve, and rest needs to be justified. Struggle is seen as evidence of failure rather than growth. One’s inner world feels less like a place where peace and self-care can blossom, and becomes more like a place that needs to be managed.
As noted earlier, according to compassion-focused psychology, engaging in chronic self-criticism activates the brain’s threat system, increasing stress, shame and emotional reactivity. In contrast, Self-compassion fosters an internal sense of security that supports learning and increases psychological flexibility and resilience (Neff & Germer, 2018). It redirects self-critical questions like “What’s wrong with me?” to “What’s going on within me?”, helping cultivate self-kindness and building an inner source of support that motivates in a healthier way.
With this in mind, you might be asking yourself: ‘How do I deal with my inner critic?’ Inspired by Yadav’s (2016) work, the following six steps are meant to guide you:
1. Be mindful (The ninja brain): Notice yourself and your surroundings in a non-judgemental manner, allowing things to be as they are, without labels.
2. Practice self-forgiveness: Forgive yourself for past mistakes. You are worthy of love exactly as you are, there is no need to be “perfect.”
3. Adopt a growing mindset: Life is about learning and changing. Embrace challenges and look for meaning in your experiences.
4. Count your blessings: Notice what’s going well today. Let gratitude gently push the negativity aside.
5. Helping hands, happy heart: Acts of kindness makes us happy, but true happiness comes when we also honor our own needs.
6. Cultivate self-love: Value yourself as a human being deserving of respect and care,just for being you.
Self-Compassion’s Invitation to Returning Back to Being Human
Moving from self-criticizing to self-compassion is a gradual and often quiet process. For example, when obtaining a disappointing grade you might acknowledge the disappointment instead of punishing yourself. When you feel tired, you allow yourself to rest without needing to justify it. Self-compassion reminds you that struggle does not equal personal failure. We all struggle, we all suffer, and we all share a wide range of emotions. Recognizing this shared humanity also helps us feel more connected to others through our shared experiences.
You could imagine practicing self-compassion as if you were talking to a close friend. Perhaps you place a hand on your shoulder and, before spiraling into self-judgement, gently ask yourself “What do I need right now?.”
Studies indicate that those with higher levels of higher self-compassion also tend to show greater emotional resilience, healthier motivation, and lower levels of shame and burnout (Neff & Germer, 2018).
Over time, the small steps you take reshape the relationship you have with your own mind. You move from self-control to self-support, from constantly self-evaluating yourself to self-understanding. Self-compassion is not something for which you first have to fix yourself so you can start practicing. It is something you practice because learning to be a human is one of the most important things you can practice. Because you are, you are already worthy.
References
Curran, T., & Hill, A. P. (2019). Perfectionism is increasing over time: A meta-analysis of birth cohort differences. Psychological Bulletin, 145(4), 410–429.
Frost, R. O., Marten, P., Lahart, C., & Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14(5), 449–468.
Gilbert, P. (2009). The compassionate mind. New Harbinger.
Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101.
Neff, K. D., & Germer, C. K. (2018). The mindful self-compassion workbook. Guilford Press.
Yadav, P. (2016). Self- compassion and the art of overcoming one’s inner critic. Indian Journal of Positive Psychology, 7(4), 495–497.