Accept The Compliment

Compliments. People give you compliments all the time right? "Your hair looks great today!" "Girl you are looking FIT!" "Your kids are so well behaved!" "Your dog is so cute!" "I love your apartment!" "Your life is so put together!" "You are so _______." Fill in the blank.

How many times do you brush off these compliments like "No, my apartment is so gross!" " Well, I've still got about 10 more pounds to lose." etc. Why do we do this?! Why do we have to automatically put ourselves down when someone is lifting us up? Why?

I'm going to tell you guys something that *I think* my dad told me a few years ago.

ACCEPT THE COMPLIMENT.

Accept the compliment. "Oh wow thank you so much!" Not only is this great for your self esteem, it is good for the person giving the compliment as well. Accepting the compliment is you validating the other person's positive observation of yourself. You are consciously accepting the good that other people see about you! When you negate someones compliment, do you notice the oddness that comes after that? The oddness is 1. You not believing in yourself 2. Them feeling like you think their positive vibes to you are not important or valuable. 3. Both parties feeling like they suck. You accepting their compliment will validate their positive words not only to them, but also to yourself. Taking someone's compliment and saying "Thank you", will give them confidence because you believe what they are saying, and that you value their positive opinion. They will feel validated by making you feel validated.

Accept the fact that maybe your apartment DOES look great. Accept the fact that you look DANG good, even if you haven't met your goal yet. What good are you doing denying something positive that someone confidently says to you? You're really only hurting you both.

I just finished Rachel Hollis' new book "Girl, Stop Apologizing", and WOW. Talk about encouragement. The ways that she's spelled out that it's ok to believe in yourself, and do hard things, and work hard for what you want... It's amazing. If you have a goal, why aren't you going after it?! There is no reason not to. I think it's about time we start believing the positive things about ourselves and dismissing the negative.

-xoxo

emily