Compliments

Talk about the last compliment you received.

The last compliment that I received was from my co-worker, noting that my weight loss is really starting to show. I’ve gotten similar comments lately from others, including my husband, other co-workers, family and comments on Facebook. Their words definitely made me feel good, but I rarely take compliments well.

I’m pretty sure that not being able to take compliments well is part of having a low self esteem and only seeing one’s faults. Without a doubt, I am guilty of this, but probably no more than most women are. We have this horribly high standard that we feel that we must live up to when it comes to areas of life like beauty, expectations and accomplishments that we feel like when we’re complimented that we don’t deserve it because we’re still not good enough.

Do you know what is going through my head when someone compliments my weight loss? That I should have lost more weight by now, that I’m not exercising like I should and I’m not eating under my calorie goal most days. I could be doing better. I’m only thinking of my failures and not my successes. It’s negative self-talk.

I’m part of a work-sponsored weight management program, and we recently had a speaker discuss this topic. The speaker talked about ways we talk ourselves out of exercising or eating right by putting ourselves down. While he didn’t speak directly of compliments, the same information applies. What caught me by surprise was not how true the information provided to us was or how many of the other members of the audience identified with what the speaker was saying or that we all were able to provide specific examples. What caught me by surprise was that his PowerPoint Presentation was Copyrighted 1995. Seeing that date from 17 years ago made me realize that this problem really hasn’t gotten better. It was a problem then, and it’s still a problem now. His presentation may have been dated but was not out of date.

I want to learn to take compliments well and be grateful for all the good that comes from someone speaking positive to me, but I also need to learn to compliment myself with positive self-talk, as well. I also want to focus on encouraging others through positive compliments. It can only make the world at least a little bit better, right?

Do you take compliments well? Are you one to compliment others easily? Are you guilty of negative self-talk?

During the month of November, I am participating in the National Blog Posting Month, also known as NaBloPoMo, hosted by BlogHer. Most likely I am following these suggested prompts, but I might just get crazy and change things up every once in a while. I’m one wild and crazy gal!

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5 thoughts on “Compliments”

This is such a fitting topic for my thoughts this week 🙂 I didn’t think about positive self talk as “complimenting yourself” but that is what it is , and I think it’s important! Another facet of complimenting to implement in life 🙂 I guess I take compliments fairly well..mostly for me I can get all shy or embarassed and then am not sure what to say back. While I love a good compliment (who doesn’t!?) I also feel I need to be humble at all times-so a compliment can make me feel tongue tied or like maybe I should down play it for the sake of being humble. I would say I need to work on thoroughly enjoying a compliment and not feeling like it would be egotistical to enjoy it. I do compliment others or offer encouragement a lot in my working life, but I will admit that sometimes I get shy or feel awkward verbalizing my feelings-especially in person. However, I do try to let people know when I appreciate things, as I think that is important! I think lots of us are guilty of negative self talk. For me, I have worked a lot on the self love and acceptance category over the years so that area I don’t have much negative self talk in anymore. However, my negative self talk can sound like a lot of ” I can’t” in certain areas. Better to focus on what one can do and not on what one can’t (which is what I am guitly of at times)!