This is idealism. We have to be careful about idealism coming from the wish to achieve, that is, you're setting up a goal and you're trying to become "that". It's important to develop more compassion for yourself, and that's difficult at times, isn't it? This is because when we're caught up in the wish to achieve, we want to become someone else. We try to run away from who we are because we don't think that we're good enough. To overcome this, we have to learn how to see the suffering of these unbeneficial qualities that we have; learn to open to what we call "Dukkha" or difficulties, both in life and in ourselves, and be willing to open to both sides of ourselves.
Many people, when they see the unbeneficial qualities within themselves, they want to push them away so that they can become a better person. In this instance we have to learn how to first note these unbeneficial qualities, like anger, desire, restlessness and worry, whatever it is. Learn how to note them objectively so that we can step back and see the energy behind our their stories. Then, we need to open to how these feel in our own body and in our own mind. We need to open to this.
Normally, we don't want to open to it; we want to run away from it because it's uncomfortable. But in order to get to compassion, we have to open to suffering, because compassion is the wise response to suffering. You can't get to compassion unless you have the willingness to open to suffering. Then, if you see this tension in the body and in the mind, there comes the realization, "This is suffering!", and then you may feel open to that compassion for yourself.
You do really want to let go of suffering, don't you? If not, you wouldn't be practicing. So if you can bring up the compassionate wish to yourselves at that time, then it transforms those unbeneficial qualities right there. Compassion transforms them; so the anger, etc. can be transformed into compassion.
All these unbeneficial things that we're trying to get rid of, if we are able learn how to note them objectively with mindfulness, see how they affect us, and open to the cause and effect of them; this helps to bring us develop more wisdom and compassion. If you look at the Noble Eightfold Path that the Buddha taught us, the first two factors are Right View and Right Intention; this is wisdom in action. Therefore we can't develop this wisdom if we don't develop more compassion to ourselves.
One time, in the very beginning of my practice, I was having a lot of difficulties. This is was in the late 70's. We decided to go to Thailand to visit a few teachers to ask them for help. Their usual response was, "That I need to be more mindful", which I tried to do. So I increased my efforts... and my desire to be enlightened also increased, but unfortunately, so did my difficulties and dissatisfaction.
Then we decided to go visit another teacher who was known for his warmth and caring. At that time his monastery was small and we had easy access to him. So I explained my difficulties to him while he listened patiently. After some time, he looked at us and said with great warmth, "You do not have enough compassion for yourself." This took us by surprise; we weren't expecting it. But focusing on compassion produced a dramatic change in our practice and in our lives. Before you can have compassion for others, you have to have it for yourself.