Accept It.

May 4, 2017

Why do you think its so difficult for “us” to accept compliments?

How do you feel when someone says to you “you look nice today” or “have you lost weight?” What is your first reaction? Typically, from what I have heard other people say to me… and my own automatic instincts in responding when complimented…  is that we almost immediately shove off the comment with a negative. We get bashful and almost embarrassed that someone noticed something to compliment us on and we respond with “oh this shirt… I just dragged it out of my closet” or “uggg, lost weight… no, I feel like a cow.” Why do we do that? Why can we not just accept the fact that someone is paying us a compliment and say “thank you” without feeling vein vane vain (the English language so complicated…). Why do we feel it is not acceptable to be proud that we do in fact look nice today… or have noticeably made a change in our appearance that is appealing to others… Why does it make us so uncomfortable?! Do we think the person is lying? Are we fishing for more? Do we feel it is wrong or if we accept that the person who complimented is going to think we are into ourselves…  I want to say I don’t get it… but I do… I mean, I do it too. But why?!

The other day I posed about our little chat sessions that kick off each class. Yesterday morning, Chris talked about the importance of this exercise and what it means to him as an affiliate owner that his members get to know each other, introduce themselves to new people and make everyone feel welcome. I have felt this from day #1 at 696. Accepted, welcome and never once like I didn’t belong. I feel like I have made friends and have got to know the 5:15am crew and am working on getting to know others who I don’t get to see as much. Having said that, I feel it is as much my responsibility to introduce myself to someone I haven’t met before as it is theirs to approach me… that’s how the family grows, strengthens and thrives. Im not a shy person… so its “easy” for me. I realize its not that simple for some people to just walk up to a stranger and say “hello, Im so and so…” I do however challenge you to try it.

Anyway,  Chris asked us this morning to look to our right and “introduce” the person standing there… and pay them a compliment. Right away, you see each person look to their right (myself included) and come up with something to share. As we go around the circle, you can almost see the embarrassment on the faces of the “complimented.” Everyone had wonderful things to say about the person to the right… kind of amazing if you think of it. We are together (most of us) just an hour or so a day… a few days a week… maybe we communicate a bit through social media or text messaging. Of course there are exceptions, of people who have been friends for years or hang out much more than the gym… but overall, we are just a group of people from all over the place, in all stages of life, doing many different jobs, we are different ages, have different goals, we have come from different family lives, we lead different life stlyes… but we have one thing in common. We are all there to take care of ourselves and make ourselves better people. We can tell just by that little time together that we each work hard, we push hard, we are passionate about what we do, fight for what we want and smile while we are doing it.  Funny how when someone tells us those things about ourselves, we have a hard time just saying “thank you, thank you for recognizing that I am all of those things… and you are too.”

I challenge you… I challenge myself… to compliment people more. I also challenge you to accept a compliment. When someone compliments you accept it. Think about how good you feel when someone compliments you. Think about how proud you are that you have done something, shown a part of who you are or how hard you worked to achieve something… accept it. Say “thank you, yes, I worked hard for this” or “thank you… I loved this shirt and had to buy it!” Don’t discount it. Let it boost you up. Don’t be afraid to boost someone up. Tell them they are beautiful. Tell them they impressed or inspired you… You will make the difference in someone’s life. I promise.

Oh… and while social media compliments are flying all over the place… I also challenge you to step away from the “virtual” compliments. Look the person in the eyes and talk to them. Spoken works are 10,000X more effective then a written word.

Give, accept and feel amazing. Make someone else feel amazing. We all deserve it. We get one shot at this life… make it a good one!