Don't Be Hungry for Compliments

There is something I think many women learn far too early, and that is how much our sense of worth can become tied to being seen, noticed, admired, and, most of all, complimented. We learn to look for that little reaction from other people, the “you look beautiful,” the “your hair looks amazing,” the “you look so good today,” and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a compliment, there is a big difference between enjoying being appreciated and needing other people to constantly reassure you that you are worthy of appreciation.

I have been thinking about this a lot because I know how easy it is to become hungry for compliments without even realizing it. You post a photo and immediately wonder how many people will like it, who will comment, whether someone will tell you that you look pretty. You change your hair and wait for someone to notice. You put on an outfit that makes you feel good, but somehow the feeling becomes less satisfying when nobody says anything about it. You walk into a room and, instead of simply experiencing yourself, you become aware of how you might be perceived. It can become this quiet little dependency on external validation, where other people's reactions start determining how you feel about yourself.

And I think women are particularly vulnerable to this because we have been taught for generations to see ourselves through the eyes of other people. We are constantly given messages about what makes a woman desirable, attractive, youthful, feminine, successful, interesting, or worthy of attention, and social media has taken that old pressure and turned it into something we can carry around with us all day. We can literally put our faces, bodies, outfits, relationships and lives in front of an audience and wait for the verdict.

But what happens when the compliments stop?

What happens when you walk into a room and nobody notices your dress? What happens when you post a picture that you love and it gets very little attention? What happens when you get older and you no longer receive the same kind of attention you received when you were younger? What happens when the person whose approval you desperately want simply does not give it to you?

If your confidence depends on those compliments, those moments can feel much bigger than they actually are.

I think there is a particular kind of freedom that comes from learning to appreciate yourself without needing someone else to confirm what you already know. Not in an arrogant way, not in a “I don't care what anyone thinks” way, because we are human beings and of course we care about connection and how we are perceived, but in a much quieter way where you can look at yourself and think, I like how I look today, even if nobody tells me I look beautiful. That is a very different kind of confidence.

I want women to experience that feeling more often because there is something exhausting about constantly waiting to be chosen, praised, noticed or desired. You can spend so much energy trying to become the version of yourself that gets the most approval that you eventually lose touch with the version of yourself that you actually enjoy being. And I don't want us to confuse attention with love either.

A woman can receive hundreds of compliments and still feel deeply insecure. She can have people telling her how gorgeous she is and still look in the mirror and find ten things wrong with herself. She can receive endless attention from men and still wonder whether she is actually worthy of being loved. She can have thousands of followers telling her that she is beautiful and still feel completely empty when she is alone with herself.

Compliments are lovely, but they are not nourishment.

They are more like dessert. You can enjoy them, appreciate them, smile when someone gives you one and even remember them for years, but you cannot build your entire emotional diet around them.

There is also something incredibly powerful about learning to compliment yourself without making it a performance. You don't have to stand in front of the mirror and convince yourself that you are the most beautiful woman alive if you don't believe that. You can simply notice yourself with a little more kindness. You can think, I like my eyes today. I love this dress on me. My hair looks good. I handled that situation well. I am proud of how far I have come. I like the woman I am becoming. Those compliments count too.

In fact, I think they count more because they come from someone who has been with you through everything.

You know what you have survived. You know how many times you picked yourself up when nobody was watching. You know the insecurities you have fought with, the mistakes you have made, the things you have learned, the days when getting out of bed felt difficult and the moments when you still chose to keep going. Other people only see pieces of you, but you live with yourself every single day.

So why should their opinion carry more weight than your own?

This doesn't mean we should stop complimenting each other. Quite the opposite. I love when women genuinely appreciate other women, when we tell our friends that they look beautiful, when we notice someone's new haircut or gorgeous outfit, when we celebrate another woman's achievements and remind her of qualities she may have forgotten about herself. There is something beautiful about women making each other feel seen.

The problem begins when being seen becomes the only way we know how to see ourselves.

I don't want to be a woman who needs someone else to tell me I'm beautiful before I can believe it. I don't want my mood to depend on whether someone noticed me. I don't want to feel less attractive because nobody happened to compliment me that day. I don't want to measure my femininity by how much attention I receive. I want to be able to enjoy compliments without depending on them.

I want to hear “you look beautiful” and smile, say thank you and carry on with my day, rather than quietly thinking, Thank God, someone still finds me attractive. There is a difference between receiving validation and chasing it.

And maybe that is something we can all work on, little by little. Not by pretending we don't care, but by giving ourselves enough approval that we don't feel emotionally starved when nobody else provides it.

Because you are allowed to enjoy being admired, but you should never have to beg the world to remind you that you are worthy. Give yourself some of the compliments you are waiting for. Tell yourself you look beautiful. Tell yourself you're doing well. Tell yourself you're proud of the woman you've become. And then go live your life without waiting for anyone else to clap.

Thankful for your presence, Neja