This Old Dress?

One small action that shouts confidence is the ability to take a compliment. Most women have trouble with something so simple and often deflect praise by saying, Oh, this old dress or It was nothing.

These delimiting responses often occur when a woman feels she doesn’t deserve the praise and instead turns a compliment into a way to point out her flaws. Much of this behavior stems from a woman thinking she’s not worthy.

Then there’s the issue of who’s awarding the compliment. For women, there's nothing quite as terrible as being perceived as cocky or too confident by another woman. According to one study, "only 22 percent of compliments given from one woman to another were accepted but compliments from men were accepted 40 percent of the time. [i]

Let’s get over it. Take a compliment with grace and simply say, Thank you. Hannah a social worker admitted that learning to take compliments was a huge undertaking. “I had to pause and think when someone complimented me on my weight loss or praised me for a recent accomplishment. In my former life, I’d say something to negate the compliment, like I still need to lose 10 pounds to deflect the attention. Now a simple ‘thank you’ with a smile works every time.”

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[i] Kim, J. (2016). Why women can’t accept compliments. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/valley-girl-brain/201603/why-women-cant-accept-compliments