Why can’t we just take a compliment?
Why is it so many of us find it nearly impossible to take a compliment and yet we easily believe the worst things we think of ourselves?
After a lovely dinner with some friends, all of whom are seriously nailing life with all its challenges, and realising not one of us could simply say ‘thank you’ when the other tried to pay a compliment, I decided to find out why. Why can’t we just take a compliment?
The perfectionism trap
Setting impossibly high standards for ourselves, whether it’s how we look, what we earn or how well we handle the juggle of motherhood, marriage and management, means a compliment is easy to diminish and dismiss.
If we are constantly striving for perfect we will always be losing because it simply doesn’t exist. My children learned a new definition of ‘practice makes perfect’ at school which is ‘practice makes progress’. If we all embraced the fact that our best is enough, we would be able to acknowledge our wins without caveating them with what we didn’t achieve.
Imposter syndrome
While we may all have felt out of place in a boardroom or power lunch at times, imposter syndrome is more than simply feeling we don’t belong. Accepting praise from someone is simply not possible when our own self view is so poor. Hearing ‘you look great’ when every time we look in the mirror all we see are flaws, makes it difficult to believe the person paying us a compliment.
Imposter syndrome is a tough one because self-doubt can also be part of our growth journey, but it needs to be monitored. Stop comparing your achievements to those of others and instead focus on how far you’ve come. Keep a journal of goals you’ve set and achieved or are on the way to achieving and refer back to it when that doubting voice gets loud.
The arrogance argument
When I recently paid a friend a compliment on her hair and she said ‘thank you’ I didn’t once think ‘what an arrogant cow! I actually stopped and thought, how great is that? (I wanted to pay her another compliment at being able to take a compliment but we’d moved on to what shampoo she uses by then).
Fears of being seen as arrogant, unlikeable or bragging can stop us taking compliments at face value. How many times have you answered a genuine compliment with a rebuttal, as if the person offering praise doesn’t really know the full story.
The next time you’re tempted to answer a compliment with a counter-argument, stop and ask yourself would I say this to or about a friend or my child or my colleague? Or would I simply say, thank you. Yes I like my hair like this. Yes I’ve been working out in the gym. Yes I got the promotion. Isn’t that great? Thanks for noticing.