It’s obvious that receiving compliments can boost your self-confidence, but I’ve found giving compliments boosts my confidence as well.
Several times I’ve had an idea that I wasn’t sure about until I shared it with my wife and she complimented it. Knowing she had really thought about my idea, considered it, and still complimented it gave me the confidence to try it.
But I wouldn’t be so confident if she had simply said, “Oh yeah, that’s a great idea.” I would start having all sorts of doubts because I got a generic, dishonest compliment.
If the best compliments I receive are those where the other person really looked at me to see my positive attributes before making a compliment then I should do the same to others. After all, typically you get out of other people what you put into them.
It takes some work, but once you develop the habit of looking closely at other people in order to make an honest compliment you’ll eventually find yourself noticing your own positive attributes. When you do, go ahead and give yourself the compliment.
Sanity Note: Give yourself the compliment in your head, or at least not while around other people. Keep talking to yourself out loud and it might become hard to find people who stay around you long enough to give or take compliments.
When you always look for darkness you find it and it overshadows your life, but when you make yourself look on the bright side of things you start noticing just how much light there really is in and around you.