I’ve done a birthday exercise with my close friends for many years.
We go around the room and each person shares one thing they love about the person whose birthday it is. I’ve seen people cry during it. I’ve cried during it myself.
But I’ve also watched something else happen, especially with people I’ve met through my work.
I’ll say something genuine. “You handled that beautifully.” “That took real courage.” And they’ll smile, nod, look away. Or say “Oh, it was nothing” or “Anyone would have done the same.”
The words land somewhere outside of them. Like they bounced right off.
After all these years working with people, that moment still moves me. And it still makes me want to understand it.
What deflecting a compliment is actually telling you
There are two kinds of deflecting. One is manners. We don’t want to seem arrogant, so we say “oh, it was nothing” and redirect the attention somewhere else.
But there’s another kind. The kind where someone says something genuinely kind and part of you immediately suspects they’re wrong. Or that they don’t really know you. Or that they’d feel differently if they did.
I worked with a woman I’ll call Renata. She was brilliant, warm, deeply skilled at what she did. Everyone who worked with her said so.
And yet every time someone praised her work, she’d redirect. “I got lucky,” she’d say, or “the team made it happen.” She always found somewhere else to send the credit.
She wasn’t being modest. She genuinely couldn’t take in the compliment.
Where those feelings are coming from
A compliment gets filtered out when there’s a belief underneath that says it can’t be true.
Something like I’m not good enough. Or I’m not worthwhile. Or What I have to offer isn’t really that valuable.
When you hold a belief like any of those, it intercepts every compliment before it can land.
You hear “You were wonderful” and the belief translates: They don’t see the full picture. They’d feel differently if they really knew me.
You hear “That was brilliant” and something inside says: They’re just being kind. Or they have low standards. Or they won’t feel that way after I mess up again.
The compliment is given. The belief filters it out.
These beliefs were formed long before you ever received a compliment that bounced. They came from childhood, from what the people around you did and said when you were small.
If your parents were critical, you likely concluded I’m not good enough. If it was hard to get attention in your house, you probably concluded I’m not important.
And maybe you succeeded at things and the adults around you seemed unimpressed, not because they didn’t care, but because they were preoccupied, or simply didn’t know how to show it. The child watching them drew a conclusion anyway.
Children always draw conclusions. It’s how we make sense of what we see. The problem is that the conclusion we draw at six or eight or ten becomes the lens through which we see everything that comes after. Including compliments.
What becomes possible
My dear friend Trisha told me something at one of those birthday gatherings that I still carry with me.
She said what she loved about me was that I was “a yes.” You want to go skiing? Yes. You want to go to the movies? Yes. You want to come over and have some cocktails? Yes.
I felt it land. Not as relief that someone approved of me, just as joy that she had seen something true about me and said it out loud.
I think about that moment whenever I work with someone who hasn’t been able to feel that. Someone who hears something kind and true and can only deflect it, or suspect it, or quietly wish they could believe it.
Once the beliefs underneath are eliminated, there is nothing left to filter out the good things.
I want that for you.
What to do next
Beliefs like I’m not good enough, I’m not worthwhile, and I’m not deserving can be eliminated. Genuinely eliminated, so the whispering stops.
A good place to start is our free belief-elimination program at recreateyourlife.com/free. The videos guide you through the process step by step.
And if you’d like to go deeper and look at what’s specifically in your way, I offer free strategy sessions where we explore what you’re experiencing and whether working together makes sense. You’re welcome to apply at mortylefkoe.com/application.
The next compliment you receive deserves to land.
That’s what’s waiting on the other side of this work.
