Did you pay someone a compliment today? That always makes you feel good and it brightens the other person's day as well, or does it? How did the other person receive the compliment? Did they allow you to feel good for giving it or inspire you to defend it by brushing it off?

Did someone compliment you today? How did it feel? Did you brush it off or accept is graciously with a "Thank you very much!"?

Remember, if you brush off a compliment, you deprive the person who gave it from the privilege of boosting you - boosting your mood, boosting your self-esteem and boosting your day.

If someone you pay a compliment to refuses to accept it, how does it make you feel? Do you feel like you need to convince them it was legit because they reject it?

Here is an example of a dampened (brushed off, rejected, avoided, repelled) compliment: (we often do this without meaning to...)

Cindy: "Wow, your garden looks great, Teresa!"

Teresa: "Oh, look at the weeds! I haven't had time to get out here and take care of things."

In this situation, Teresa dampened Cindy's compliment and neither benefited. Both women would have felt better if Teresa said, "Thank you very much! I'm looking forward to spending more time out here. I can see there is a lot to do."

Here is one compliment I used to catch myself brushing off.

"Kelly, it's great that you know how to create your own websites; you don't have to have a webmaster!"

I used to say, "Oh, I had to learn because I couldn't afford to hire someone to do it for me." Yikes! That's negative and brings up financial challenge memories for both parties!

Now, I say, "Thank you! I had to learn to do it myself for financial reasons and now I'm excited to be so independent." This response is positive and makes both parties feel good. It also makes an important point that necessity can be beneficial in the long run. This could easily inspire someone else to learn a skill with the intention of becoming more independent themselves.

As you can see, it's great to give authentic compliments but how the receiver receives the compliment is important to both of you.