The last time someone gave you a real compliment, what did you do with it?
If you’re like most women I know, you explained it away before it even had a chance to land. The dress was on sale. The hair is a mess. I almost didn’t come. And we call that humility. But here is what I’ve come to understand after 40 years of sitting across from women in their most honest moments — sometimes what we call humility is really just fear in a nice outfit.
And it runs deeper than we think.
Research shows that only 22% of compliments between women are actually accepted. Not deflected, not returned, not minimized — actually accepted. And women who do accept compliments are rated more negatively by others for doing so. So the pressure to shrink is not something we invented. It was handed to us. And we absorbed it so young that most of us don’t even question it anymore.
In psychology we talk about something called our self-concept — the story we carry about who we are. And our brain is remarkably good at protecting that story. So when a compliment comes in that doesn’t match the picture we carry of ourselves, it doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels like a disruption. And we close that gap as fast as we can by making the compliment smaller, handing it back, or turning it into a joke before anyone can take us seriously. If you want to go deeper on where that story comes from, my free guide Three Questions That Will Change the Way You See Yourself is exactly where to start — and it’s free.
What I really want you to hear is this. The woman who deflects praise is often the same woman who doesn’t negotiate her salary, doesn’t put her name forward, and walks into the room already apologizing for being there. These things are connected in ways most of us never stop to examine. Every small act of self-erasure is practice. And practice, over time, becomes a way of living. If the inner critic piece landed for you, The Voices in Your Head: Whose Are They Really? goes even further into that.
In this episode I get into where this pattern comes from, what it is actually costing us, and what it looks like to start changing it — in small, concrete, genuinely uncomfortable ways. I also end with something a little unexpected that I hope makes you laugh and then makes you think.
Confidence is not arrogance. At its most basic, it is simply the ability to let true things be true — including the good ones. Especially the good ones.
Go listen. And maybe practice your thank you before you do.
Keep going:
The REAL Women’s Collective is where women are having exactly these conversations every week — and it’s free to join.
If you want to go deeper into owning who you are and stepping out of the patterns that have kept you small, Put On Your Big Girl Shoes is where I’d send you next.
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If someone in your life needed to hear this today — you already know who she is — please send it to her.
Until next time — stay real.
— Dr. Lori
