Compliments are meant to give us pleasure. But many of us feel embarrassed when praised. Why is that?
One feels embarrassment not only they fail in public, but also when they succeed in public. And a compliment means that you’ve done something well and you are appreciated for it. Why would that make us squirmy?
1. We’ve been taught that boasting is wrong
The social norm dictates that self-aggrandizement is wrong and we see a compliment as a form of boasting, even though it comes from somebody else. So we are left with two equally embarrassing options: we accept it and violate the social norm or deny it and make the other feel bad.
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2. We can’t believe it to be sincere
People with low self-esteem have a hard time accepting compliments because they run against their negative feelings about themselves. That’s why when they receive a compliment, their first thought is that the other is joking or lying. In consequence, they feel confused or they feel that they somehow managed to deceive the other.
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3. We feel judged
When someone pays us a compliment, we suddenly realize that that person was paying attention to us and therefore we feel judged. It implies a kind of intimacy with which not many of us feel comfortable. Another explanation for our embarrassment is that we feel that the compliment implies some high expectations that we don’t want to live up to.
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According to positive psychology, the best reaction is to accept the compliment with gratitude and allow ourselves to feel good about it. Also, we should try to learn what exactly we’ve done well so that we can repeat it in the future.
Don’t forget that you deserve to feel appreciated! Please, share this!
