Why Compliments Make You Uncomfortable
Reading a Feeling More Complicated Than Modesty
Compliments always land on your social self and its results, but you know every step of the process inside, so they sound like they're about someone else. Four traits that find compliments especially uncomfortable, and five ways to accept praise without pushing it away.
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As the meeting wraps up, your team lead says in front of everyone, “You did a really great job organizing the materials this time.” Your face heats up first, and out of your mouth pops, “Oh, no, everyone helped me.” Even after you're back at your desk, you feel more uneasy than happy. It's the same in the evening when a friend says, “Love your outfit today.” Only after firing back with “This old thing? I've had it forever” do you wonder why you didn't just say thank you.
You heard something nice, so why does it feel uncomfortable? In this piece, let's break that discomfort down into a few strands, look at which traits feel it more often, and talk about how to accept a compliment without pushing it away.
Pushing compliments away isn't just modesty
Waving off a compliment the moment you get it is usually read as modesty. But look inside, and there's something more complicated than modesty mixed in. Before it's a nice thing to say, a compliment is an evaluation. Someone watched you, gave you a score, and said it out loud. Even when the score is good, standing in the spot where you're being evaluated is pretty nerve-racking for some people. Especially for someone who rarely got compliments, even a good evaluation is an unfamiliar one.
So feeling uncomfortable with compliments doesn't make you strange or twisted. A compliment carries a lot inside it, and people just react to different parts of it.
Compliments go to your social self, and you know your private self
This is the biggest reason compliments feel uncomfortable. A compliment always goes to what the other person saw: the you around people and what you produced. But you know everything behind it. The night before the deadline when you wanted to give up, the part that worked out by luck, the part someone else helped with.
When there's distance between the you being complimented and the you that you know, the compliment sounds like it's about someone else. And beyond that comes the worry: “What if they're disappointed later?” The higher the praise, the higher the place you could fall from. That's also why the discomfort grows the wider the distance between the you around people and the you when alone. The one receiving the compliment is your social self, but the one who carries it home is your private self.
Four traits that find compliments especially uncomfortable
High on Accommodating. They feel a compliment like a debt. They only feel at ease once they've paid it back, so “You look great today too” comes out on reflex. Simply receiving, and nothing more, feels awkward, so they can't hold on to a compliment for long. On a day they get complimented, they may spend a long time wondering what they should do for the other person in return.
High on Organized. A compliment raises the bar. “You did great this time” sounds like “Next time you have to do at least this well.” On top of that, they know the gaps the complimenter didn't see, so the compliment feels overblown. For them, something specific like “This part was really good” sounds far easier than vague praise. Vague praise only raises the bar, while specific words tell them what to keep doing.
A wide emotional amplitude. A sudden compliment makes their heart leap. Their face flushes and they don't know what to say. The feeling is so big that they hurry to cover it with “Oh, no” just to make the moment end. They feel joy strongly too, so being seen feeling that joy can be embarrassing in itself.
Low on Social. Having many people's eyes land on them at once uses up energy all by itself. More than what the compliment says, it's those few seconds of everyone looking at them that weigh on them. So a one-line message sent privately is welcome, while praise in a meeting room is overwhelming.
Check for yourself which compliments make you uncomfortable
Think about compliments you've gotten lately and pick the lines that apply to you.
- A compliment in front of a group is much more uncomfortable than one given privately.
- When my results get praised, the first thing I think of is the part that worked out by luck.
- When I get a compliment, I only feel settled after I immediately return a similar one.
- When someone compliments my looks, “No, not really” comes out almost automatically.
- Something I got praised for makes me feel pressure to do even better next time.
- And yet, compliments I get in writing, I reread on my own again and again.
Look at which of the first five lines hits you hardest, and you'll see whether your discomfort comes from being looked at, from feeling indebted, or from the rising bar. Compliments on your looks can be especially hard because looks feel less like something you worked to create, so “Thank you” can feel like taking credit that isn't yours. If even the last line applies, it's not that you dislike compliments. It's that the moment of having to take one in, right there in front of people, is hard.
Five ways to accept a compliment without pushing it away
It's also worth thinking about what happens on the other person's side when you push a compliment away. A compliment is a bit like a small gift. “Oh, no, it was nothing” sounds modest, but to the person who gave it, it can feel like having the gift handed back. It can even sound like you're telling them their eye was off. Practicing accepting compliments comfortably is something you do for yourself, and also a way of receiving the kindness of the person who complimented you.
- Stop at “Thank you.” Don't add “Oh, no” or “It was nothing”; just end with a thank you. At first it feels awkward, like the sentence isn't finished, but after a few tries that awkwardness fades quickly. Make eye contact once and smile briefly, and even short words carry plenty of feeling.
- Add one line of fact. “Thank you. I spent some time this round figuring out the order of the materials.” You're sharing one piece of the process you know, without denying the compliment. The result they saw from the outside and the process you went through on the inside meet in one sentence, so the feeling that the compliment belongs to someone else fades. For a compliment on your looks, you can add a line about your taste, like “Thanks, I love this color too.”
- Save the return compliment for later. Returning a compliment the moment you get one makes it sound light, like a traded greeting. If there's a compliment you truly want to give the other person, give it separately, on another day, in another setting. That one stays with them much longer.
- If public praise is too much, say so in advance. Just tell a close coworker or your team lead once, “I actually prefer hearing things like that one on one rather than in front of everyone.” You're not turning down the compliment; you're letting them know how you like to receive it. Telling a close friend once, “I get shy when I'm complimented, so I say no for no reason. But I actually love it,” makes things easier for both of you too.
- Start a note for collecting compliments. Copy the compliments you get into your phone's notes app, one line each. Even if you pushed them away in the moment, reading them again on a low day can give you more strength than you'd think. Write down who said it and when, too, and you can use it later when you want to thank that person.
If the bar a compliment sets keeps making you push yourself too hard, we talked about that feeling separately in Perfectionism, Strength or Shackle?.
Don't read it this way
- Feeling uncomfortable with compliments doesn't mean you have low self-esteem. Even people with solid self-esteem can feel uncomfortable when all eyes are on them. If you're curious about self-esteem, you might also read When Your Self-Esteem Keeps Dropping.
- It doesn't mean modesty is bad, either. But modesty and denial are different things. “Thank you” doesn't take anything away from your modesty.
- If every compliment brings on such intense embarrassment or anxiety that you start avoiding people, talk to a professional rather than enduring it alone.
Wrapping up
Compliments can feel uncomfortable partly because you know yourself so well. The other person talks about the result they saw from the outside, and you think of the process you went through on the inside. Just because the two pictures differ doesn't make the compliment wrong. Both of them are you. Next time you get a compliment, try stopping at “Thank you” instead of “Oh, no.”
The free personality test shows the you around people and the you when alone on five personality traits, separately. Seeing where the distance between those two situations opens up the widest makes it a little clearer why compliments sound like they're about someone else.
This piece is meant to help you understand yourself and does not replace psychological diagnosis or treatment.
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