Compliment yourself

When was the last time you complimented yourself, without caveat. No buts, or ifs, no deflecting to talk about something or someone else. Just complimented yourself?

It can be difficult to do, we often tend to deflect, by talking about what we didn’t do well, or how we got help from other people, as opposed to letting us to take a compliment. It feels boastful, ‘taking’ credit, as opposed to just letting us be happy with our work really can do a number on our self esteem and self talk.

We talk about constant improvement, and getting constructive and realistic feedback on our work is important, but the key terms are constructive and realistic. Which sometimes means accepting we did a damn good piece of work, regardless of what else happened.

Outside of work, and productive things, it can be even harder to compliment ourselves. We find it hard to gauge ourselves on things, especially on things that society devalues, like care work, artistic or creative endeavours, or doing things ‘just for fun’.