How to Get Praise Without Acting Like You’re Desperate for Praise

You don’t need to fish for compliments

The best praise I’ve ever received came a few jobs ago, when I was working for a boss I deeply admired. In my role as head of public relations, I had planned five big events for New Year’s Eve — three of which were smash hits, and two of which flopped. Big time. When the night was over, my boss told me, perhaps undeservedly, that I had executed the whole thing perfectly, regardless of the result.

That recognition meant the world to me. In that moment, someone could have offered me double the salary to take a job elsewhere, and I wouldn’t have left.

It can feel a little silly to think of praise as having that much power over us. After all, kind words don’t have the same professional value as, say, a promotion, and they don’t erase the frustrating problems in a relationship. A compliment from your partner about your home-cooked dinner won’t stop you from getting pissed at them for never doing the dishes.

But praise deprivation is real, and it can have a seriously detrimental effect on our well-being, both at work and at home. One study from Gallup found that two out of three U.S. workers are rarely praised for their work and that a lack of recognition dramatically increases the odds that an…