The Next Time Someone Compliments You, Ask Why
One step to overcome impostor syndrome
It happens to me more than I’d like: I finally finish a big, complicated story, or have an A+ parenting day where everyone’s happy and fed and no one has any meltdowns — and I’m so focused on the things I did wrong that I can’t even let myself enjoy the win. Well-meaning compliments from my husband or a close friend don’t help much, either, mostly because I don’t believe them. They have to say that, I think. They’re just being nice.
That’s just how impostor syndrome works: No matter how many accolades or compliments you collect, you still don’t feel like you measure up. But it turns out one of the best ways to combat that feeling is to focus less on just accepting a kind word, and more on actually internalizing it.
I recently did some research for another article on impostor feelings, and this was one of the biggest takeaways from my conversations with 10 different psychologists: If you want to feel more confident in who you are and what you’ve done, stop dismissing people’s compliments and start fixating on them.
That could be as easy as keeping track of all the nice things people say to you, and looking at them when you need a boost. (I love the writer Lauren Sieben’s brilliant suggestion to create a Good Shit board.) For…
