The Mental Emotional Health Blog

Accepting compliments is essential to healthy self-esteem. Believing compliments is also important, but that won’t happen anyway if you’re not even accepting them. Here are some simple things to remember:

1. Say “Thank you”, or “thanks”, or “I appreciate that”.
2. If you know your self-esteem is low, you don’t have to worry about an overabundance of pride, so don’t minimize or argue with the person giving the compliment. Avoid saying things like, “Not really”, or “No big deal”, or “I don’t see it that way”.
3. Do not tell yourself things like, “They just don’t know me.” Compliments are often behavior-based or fact-based, such as “Nice job on the project”, or “I like your shoes”. So again, don’t argue with the compliment internally.

If you want to start believing compliments, after you say “thank you”, ask yourself, “What if you are right?” Honestly consider it being at least possible.