One Mindset “Trick” That Will Keep the Fat Off
Back on a warm summer day in 2006, I was standing at a street festival, smelling the scent of fried carnival food in the air, light beer in hand, waiting to meet some friends I hadn’t seen in a while.
When my friends and I eventually met up, I can remember one of them saying, “Oh my gosh, you look great!”
I had lost about 50 lbs in my latest weight loss attempt at that point. Six years prior to that, I had gotten down to 194 lbs, my lowest as an adult to that point, only to regain my way all the way back up to 288 lbs, my all-time high.
I could only think of how much I used to weigh before I regained all that weight, and how much more I had to lose to get back to where I used to be.
“I never should have regained it in the first place,” was my answer. She looked at me like I kicked her dog. Awkward silence followed.
Have you ever been caught off guard by a compliment?
What did you say in response?
How did you feel when it was said to you?
If you felt uncomfortable, you are not alone.
In a recent study by Christopher Littlefield, founder of AcknowledgementWorks, almost 70% of people associate a feeling of “discomfort or embarrassment” with receiving positive acknowledgement.
The really fucked up thing about this is that the same study showed 88% of people associate such positive acknowledgement with the feeling of being valued.
We crave the value felt from compliments, but we reject them when they are actually offered.
So even when we receive the validation that we often work so hard for, our minds will spoil it, bastardize it, or outright erase it with feelings of guilt or embarrassment.
Which leads us to our “one mindset trick”:
NEVER ARGUE WITH A COMPLIMENT. JUST SAY, “THANK YOU”
It may sound overly simple, but go back and think about the last time you received a compliment from someone.
Very often, we will respond with answers that either negate or marginalize the compliment that was given.
“You look nice today,” will be answered with, “Oh, no - I’m a mess.”
Or
“Great job,” urges us to minimize our accomplishment with, “It was nothing,” or “It wasn’t that hard.”
The reason it can be so uncomfortable for us to receive praise is that our negative thoughts and self-image aren’t in alignment with what is being said. Even worse, our negative self-image can cause us to view the compliment giver as an unreliable or even untrustworthy source.
In order to reverse this self-destructive pattern, we must listen to and accept positive messages from others and from ourselves. And we must resist the negative impulses that keep us from taking in the recognition that we - that YOU are, in fact, a worthy and bad ass individual!
It has been said that you can’t expect to walk 10 miles into the forest and get back out in 5. If you have spent decades thinking, saying and believing negative things about yourself, it will take a lot of awareness and repeated positive messaging to fight back. But, like your fitness and health journey, it is a righteous fight.
So take a breath. Sit in the discomfort of the positive thought. Let the compliment soak in. Don’t argue with or marginalize it.
Simply say, “Thank you”.
And remind yourself to say “Thank you” again and again and again along your journey.
It will do wonders for your confidence and your mindset.
Sources:
-Goulston, Mark, 2013, What to do when praise makes you uncomfortable, Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2013/12/what-to-do-when-praise-makes-you-uncomfortable
-Morin, Amy, 2016, 4 Reasons Compliments Make You Cringe, Inc.com, https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/compliments-make-you-cringe-science-explains-the-reasons-why.html#:~:text=Your%20Self%2DImage%20Doesn't,%22You're%20so%20smart.