hey good lookin'
I'm not feeling like I have much writing in me today. I do have a question, though. How do you handle receiving compliments?
If you're inclined, I'd be interested to read your answer in comments. Leave them anonymously if it's personal. I'll write more about my take on this later, but I don't want to bias any answers I might get. This is a personal rather than a professional issue, so please don't feel like there's some kind of right answer.
If you're inclined, I'd be interested to read your answer in comments. Leave them anonymously if it's personal. I'll write more about my take on this later, but I don't want to bias any answers I might get. This is a personal rather than a professional issue, so please don't feel like there's some kind of right answer.
posted by H. Now at 8:04 p.m.
7 Comments:
I feel proud.
I usually make a conscious effort to keep up whatever it was that I was complimented on. For example, if someone said that I am a very good at writing calligraphy, I will likely practice even more to sorta maintain my "title".
This is why I compliment my children on everything they do. I give them praise everyday for something.
Are you trying to tell us that there are 'right' answers for all the other entries??
I'm happy, but often don't know how to respond gracefully. So I bumble around...
Thoughts on compliments.
Compliments can be used as a means of control. If you make can make another person feel good about themselves with a compliment, they may continue to carry out that behaviour to continue feeling good about themselves. Compliments use skillfully can entrap other people.
Real compliments without hidden agendas are gifts. It hurts both yourself and the giver to refuse them.
Compliments are also a way of another person saying I understand you a bit more, or I've noticed this in you. It removes some of the anonymity between people. It is the forming of a bond, a connection between others.
The ability to give a compliment is tied up with assertiveness. Just as it takes personal strength to complain, it takes personal strength to say good things about others.
yeah, my reaction probably most resembles tim's, and a bit of anon's. i feel happy, but then don't know what to do with it. i start doing the behaviour again, but i often feel like i exaggerate it until i do it wrong and make a lie out of the compliment. i'll also often go back and forth on it, taking it on board too much/undermining it by derogating the source (wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member).
praising children is interesting to me. i feel like it is very important, and something i was impoverished of when i was a child (which i think is why i don't have a behaviour pattern to deal with it). but dave has a good point too, that it can be a controlling device (we praise what we want to reinforce). with children, i guess because the adult has such a better grasp on many (although not all) realities, the praise is important.
i do feel like in many ways people are scared to give compliments, in part because it's easier to feel good about yourself if you think everyone else is worse than you. this was one of the best things about my few times at raves, was the access to positive and honest feedback, both giving and receiving.
I've really enjoyed this initial question and the ensuing comments, as my knee-jerk response to "How do you handle receiving compliments?" was "BADLY".
I usually feel like compliments I receive are undeserved in the sense that I'm being complimented for something that I feel is behavior I should be doing anyway. So if someone says "you're a good lecturer", my internal perfectionist voice says "ok, but that's my job, it's my responsibility to do it well". As a result, my response to compliments is usually some sort of flippant, jokey, come-back.
The comments here have made me start to think about this differently though. So thanks to Dave C. for pointing out the effect my responses may have on the giver of the compliment, and to SS, for making me see the root of my behavior in my upbringing (i.e., My family only points out what one is doing WRONG, never what one is doing RIGHT. Case in point, mother recently saw a videotape of my being interviewed on the news for some research - only comment made was "wow, the camera really does add 30 lbs"). Clearly, therapy is needed on both our parts!!!!
Anyhow, hope you can accept my compliments on your comments gracefully :-)
hey wife-o: glad you got something out of this. wife-o-so-so and i have been playing a game where we try to name 3 things our friends might say we don't give ourselves enough credit for. it's hard, but it's also often easy to recognize things our friends like that we don't. often, we come to the conclusion that our friends just don't understand, that we've fooled them. it forces you to confront the belief that your friends are easily fooled, a clearly false belief for those of us who respect our friends as much as we do.
for what it's worth, i think you're cool and wish you lived here in australia.
Back at you on the cool/wish you lived here front - well, perhaps not here in our city exactly, that would just be cruel, but the same hemisphere would be a nice start.
As for games, you once introduced ES to a game several years ago in which one has to name their 5 most favourite and 5 least favourite things about themselves and those they are playing with. ES, DNA and I gave it a whirl (it's probably not necessary to point out that copious amounts of alcohol are required) and we were all suprised at the extent to which our least favourite things (appearance & personality-wise) were often the others most favoured.
Raises some interesting questions in my mind about how one approaches self-growth. That is, if I work to alter my least favourite things then I may remove the very traits that have attracted some of my favourite people to me. Confusing.....
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