Description: This week, Dr. Boogren discusses that weird habit we all are guilty of, deflecting compliments. What would it look like if we just said, "thank you"?
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Transcription: Hi guys, before we get to today's episode, I just wanted to jump in here real quick and send a very special shout out to our Self-Care September challenge winners. They are—drum roll, please—Jen Riddle, Marlene Meyer, Sarah Hess Lindmeier, Brittany Spence, and Jacob Michael. Oh my goodness. Congratulations!
Signed books are coming your way, and thank you to everyone that participated. What an incredibly inspiring month September was. And, don't stop now just because September is over. Doesn't mean we quit with the self-care. Keep going, keep going, keep going, and stay tuned, because I have something fun in the works for November as well.
Okay. Back to the episode!
Hi, and welcome to episode 15 of Self-Care for Educators. I am your host, Tina Boogren, and this week, we are going to explore the idea of accepting the compliment. So simple and yet so hard for so many reasons. Here's the deal. So often when we get a great compliment, I think what happens is just we feel bashful and awkward. And so, we do that ridiculous thing where we downplay it, or we say, Oh, it's nothing. Or, we just deflect it. And this week, I want to us to resist that urge and learn how to simply say, Thank you when someone compliments us. Just thank you. In her article for entrepreneur.com, author Jacqueline Whitmore gives a few additional tips here.
And if I just ... I found them really, really great. So number one, she reminds us that if the compliment is in regards to a team effort, acknowledge the contributions of our colleagues. That always feels really good. You know, something along the lines of, Oh my gosh, thank you. We all put in so much effort. It feels so good to be recognized for that.
Number two, the reminder is as I just said, that thank you is a complete and powerful sentence on it's own. Boom! Just thank you. Finally, you know, the reminder that when we undermine the compliment, it's actually hurtful to the person providing that compliment. We all know that feeling from the other side, when we give a compliment to someone else that we legitimately want to express ... that preys upon them, and they downplay it. It makes us not feel so great. So, we don't want to do that to someone else.
Then, the last thing that she says that I found so helpful is that, we want to resist the inclination to start a compliment battle if you will ... so, saying something along the lines of, Thank you, but we know that what I did wasn't nearly as valuable as what you did or as important as what you did . Let's stop doing that, too. Again, it just doesn't feel good to the person giving that compliment. And, let's just lean into the confidence that it takes to simply say, Thank you; that means a lot to me. And, take the compliment for exactly what was said. Don't try to read into that or talk yourself out of it or any of those things that are crazy tends to do to us. No, instead I want us to just simply, this week, explore and play with and try really, really, really hard to except the compliment. Those of you that listen to this podcast with other colleagues and friends, check yourself on this. Make sure when you hear someone else that maybe downplays a compliment, remind them, No, no, no, no, no. I want you to simply say thank you because it's something I really truly think. It takes practice, and it takes kind of working with someone else to recognize when we're doing it. I think sometimes we don't even know we're doing it. Or, we might not realize we're doing it until later, and, I want us to be aware of this right in the moment.
So that's it. This is a short one this week. That's it! I want you ... to take the compliment. I want you to practice using, I mean, these words as a complete sentence: Thank you. Period. Okay? Okay. Let's do this. Oh, awesome. I cannot wait. I wish that I could personally compliment each and every single one of you and have you just say thank you back, too. Just ... hear me say this to you right now. You guys, hear me offer this compliment. You are an amazing bad-ass educator, and I want you to practice just saying, Wow; thanks, Tina. Awesome, you guys. Okay.
As always a huge, huge, huge, thank you to Brooke for making this happen. Oh, thank you so much Solution Tree and Marzano Resources for the gift of this job that I get to do every day, and as always a huge, huge, huge shout out to you, my bad-ass Self-Care Squad, for being so absolutely incredible. I am so thankful for you.