Compliments can be a minefield. In fact, psychologists in Belgium have identified a number of ways that compliments can make the person being complimented feel uncomfortable.
As soon as someone pays you a compliment, you might feel judged and self-conscious. For instance, if you meet up with friends and one of them pays you a compliment about your outfit, you might feel an uncomfortable sense of being in the spotlight.
Social awkwardness or inappropriateness can also be a factor, for instance, if your boss pays you a personal compliment.
Aside from these, you might also feel indebted to the person complimenting you and under pressure to reciprocate; or you might feel misunderstood (perhaps the compliment is at odds with your feelings about yourself); or you might feel undeserving – if you were disappointed with something you did, it might be annoying if someone praises you for it.
There could even be situations where you’re delighted with something you’ve done – preparing a romantic meal, for instance, and your partner’s compliment (“that was nice”) is underwhelming.
One way to overcome some of these feelings is to remind yourself that the person complimenting you had good intentions. They probably wanted you to know that they’re thinking highly of you in some way and they anticipated that their compliment would make you feel good.
If the compliment is from a friend or partner, they probably hoped that the exchange would bring you closer together.
Seeing things this way isn’t always easy and research suggests it might be particularly challenging for people who are low in self-esteem. If this is something you struggle with, you might find that what you really crave is to be understood and when people pay you compliments, the message you get is that they really don’t ‘get you’.
Psychologists have studied these dynamics in romantic relationships and found that for partners with low self-esteem, receiving compliments from their other half can backfire – the person with low self-esteem is left feeling misunderstood and anxious that they won’t be able to live up to their partner’s unrealistic beliefs.
Other studies have looked at ways to help people with low self-esteem to benefit from receiving compliments. The main takeaway is to try to get out of the mindset of whether the compliment matches with your own views of yourself.
Instead, try to focus on what the compliment means in the specific situation (for example, that you just did something that someone thinks is praiseworthy) and also what it implies – in a good way – about your relationship with this person and how they see you.
Longer-term, if you can find ways to address your low self-esteem, you’ll probably discover a welcome side-effect is that you’ll begin finding it easier to take compliments.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by George Alvin, via email) 'How can I get better at taking compliments?'
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