Compliments Are A Hell Of A Drug
Everyone loves compliments until they don’t. If I dress up for an occasion, it’s wonderful to hear someone tell me that I look nice. If I’ve worked hard on something, being told that I’ve done a good job is a nice reinforcement. But what happens if somebody says something negative about me? What if it’s someone who matters to me that says it? That can easily ruin my day, or at least it used to. It turns out that outside negativity only has weight when we let our source of positivity be affirmation from others.
The Effects of Compliments
I got this idea from Gary Vaynerchuk originally, but decided to look into it further. According to an article by Emily Blatchford, compliments are good for your health. The only catch is that compliments have to be genuine. So long as compliments are genuine, she reports that it increases performance and mood in the receiver of the compliment. While I don’t doubt this effect, I find it to be unhealthy. Here’s why.
The Effects of Your Beliefs About Compliments
The psychological and physiological effects of compliments reported by Blatchford remind me of a Ted Talk I’m fond of by Kelly McGonigal. Her talk is on stress. More specifically, it is on the effects of our beliefs about stress. While I do recommend watching the entirety of the talk, the main takeaway is that stress is only harmful to our health if we believe it to be so. People who view stress as an extra push to overcome a challenge actually benefit from stress. This is a powerful demonstration of how our mindset can affect our body.
How does one’s mindset on the cheers and the boos we encounter in our daily lives affect our bodies? First, let’s look at how it affects people who place value on compliments and hate.
According to a study from the National Institute for Psychological Sciences in Japan, people who receive a compliment while learning retain more information than those who do not receive one. Interestingly, the effect is the same as when one is rewarded with money. Employers tend to take away from this that they should consistently reward employees, which I’m never against. What I take away from this is that most people are extrinsically motivated.
Extrinsic Motivation & Intrinsic Motivation
I’ve spoken to a number of people who will sum up their day at work by a few words that their boss says to them. I’m certainly guilty of doing this myself. Perhaps this is best for someone with a great boss and low self esteem. Otherwise, I see this to be a problem.
The alternative is intrinsic motivation. For those who are mainly intrinsically motivated, the hate and boos we receive in life hold little value. Resilience is high, but this comes with a price. These same people don’t let compliments carry them. Compliments do not make these individuals happy. They do not exist to satisfy the expectations of others. Rather, intrinsically motivated people exist to fulfill their own objectives.
This mindset provides more stability. Without depending on compliments, intrinsically motivated people can keep their eyes on their actual goals. The best part of this is that it is a mindset. Just as in stress, I believe the effects of compliments are directly related to our beliefs about them.
What Can I Do?
As hard as it may be, I’d like to challenge you to take the next compliment you receive with a grain of salt. See it as an act of kindness instead of a determination of your value. Once you get used to doing so, dismissing negativity from others and remaining resilient will become much easier.
