How many times have you greeted a compliment with a negative statement about yourself?
For the longest time, I did not understand the concept of accepting a compliment.
Compliments made me feel uncomfortable, I would make statements like "Oh, no" or awkwardly smile and think to myself all of the negative things "they're just saying that" or "yeah, but..." fill in the blank.
I believed that compliments were either coming from an ulterior motive or people that were just being nice ...because that's what life had taught me. I didn't feel worthy of any sort of compliment
What helped me to get through this?
I started complimenting other people ...not solely on their looks but on things like personality, thoughtfulness, behaviors.
Anything positive that I noticed about someone, I would just let them know. I made an intention to let each person that I came into contact with know at least one positive attribute about them that I had observed.
This especially helped with people that I was feeling particularly negative towards, I made it a point to compliment them sooner in the interaction or at least in my mind I would find one positive attribute immediately. I realized that generally I was feeling negative because of insecurities or some reflection of myself that I wasn't too fond of at the moment.
People started to notice... I heard things like "you always make me feel so good" and the best part is that people started wanting to be around me ....people that shared the positive energy with me.
My mindset totally shifted too. I started becoming more positive about the world around me.
From there, I became more and more confident in my own positive qualities and compliments became less uncomfortable.
Now when I hear "You are awesome" or "You look really cute today" ....I can smile and confidently say "thank you" and honestly believe it's coming from a genuine place.
Sometimes I compliment back and other times, I just soak in the praise. Read my next blog on why it isn't always necessary to compliment back.
What's one of the best compliments you've gotten? Share it in the comments below.