TIP TWO: CREATING A LIST OF COMPLIMENTS ☀️
Who can relate to this?
You’re having a good day, you may have even received some lovely compliments, but then you get that one piece of criticism and, just like that, your day has taken a turn for the worse.
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We so easily brush off compliments and yet always seem to focus on and hold onto the negatives. Why? We are social beings. We want approval and acceptance and need connection and belonging. At the same time, we’ve picked up self-critical beliefs throughout our life-time that tell us things like, “I’m not good enough” or “others are judgemental” and these beliefs can make us unintentionally filter out any information that does not support them, focusing only the information around us that does. We know from experience that giving that much power to these unhelpful thoughts and interactions does not serve us, but how do we start to shift this?
Here’s one idea!
At the back of your journal or even on a spare piece of paper start taking note of the nice things people say to you. These could be from friends, family, and even complete strangers. Try to especially look out for the non-physical compliments that people give you. Call it a list of compliments. You can do this daily or weekly but the aim is to start making ourselves more consciously focus on the information that our inner critic tries to get us to ignore or filter out; to better notice the positive impacts we can have on the people and world around us too.
This way if you’re ever feeling down or are experiencing a moment of self-doubt you have evidence at the ready to contradict your inner-critic and strip it of some of its power.
As they say, receiving a compliment is like receiving a balloon. You can choose to let it go with the wind. OR you can choose to receive it, hold onto it and take it home with you for when you need a reminder for how appreciated you are.
Sometimes we all just need a reminder that we are not the things our mind tells us.
The more you consciously practice this, the more you’ll start to see and believe in the good parts of yourself too. It will help you begin to develop a kinder inner voice; one that defends you and boosts your self-esteem, rather than attacks you and makes you feel worse about yourself. It will help you to slowly improve your self-esteem, mental fitness and overall life satisfaction!
How we talk to ourselves matters. You carry so much love in your heart, this is your reminder to share some of it with yourself too.