The Perfect Complement To A New Year? A Compliment.

"Before we start eating, I have say this meal looks and smells incredible. Wow. You've completely outdone yourself."

"Before we start? I've started and it is delicious. I can't stop eating this pudding!"

"Same and the polenta is just to die for. So good."

So went the compliments to the chef (me) at my family's annual Christmas brunch, this time with new additions in the form of extended family. Though I intended for my response to come across as gracious, it was instead peppered with the awkwardness of compounded humility, self-criticism, and impostor syndrome. Thanks, but perhaps the pudding is too sweet. And the polenta? Could definitely be warmer. This in turn achieved the undesired effect of additional, overcompensated praise. "No way, it's all perfect!"

Not just in my food world, but also in my work and writing worlds, I often find myself uncomfortably dodging compliments while I offer or request critical feedback. Isn't that how one improves? Isn't there always room for improvement? Compared to compliments, critical feedback also better lends itself to a face-to-face conversation. After all, what more is there to say after a compliment other than a polite thank you?

There's also the perpetual question of whether or not given praise is genuine. What if she's just saying it to say it? To say something?

On the giving side, there's an art to complimenting in a powerful yet genuine fashion. Much of the time, it almost feels easier to provide critical rather than complimentary feedback. We feel like we are thinking critically and providing value by helping someone else to improve (if our intentions are pure, at least).

My tendency to overlook positive feedback while seeking out the critical is not unique. The way our brains work, we remember negative, critical feedback over praise in the long term. This is because our brains process negative and positive emotions in different hemispheres, and negative emotions involve more processing. We actively think about and reflect upon negative feedback more than we do positive feedback, thus making the negative feedback more memorable.

Still, compliments — giving and receiving them — are indispensable to our success as individuals and a community.

One study by Sugawara et. al found that receiving a compliment on a task actually improves future performance on the same task. Praise activates areas of the brain that synthesize what we've learned while we sleep. It's not just the critical feedback that helps us improve.

Implications of another study by Seiter suggest that giving a compliment has influencing power. A compliment persuades someone to act in a certain way. In this particular experiment, the effect played out in restaurants, where servers who complimented their patrons received significantly higher tips.

Perhaps most important to the compliments camp is the finding that compliments make us happy. In fact, negative feedback negatively impacts happiness three times more than meaningful praise positively impacts happiness (as researched in the professional context).

Taken together, these studies suggest that by washing down praise with criticism, I'm only doing myself a disservice. Instead, I should be coveting moments of praise by actively relishing, reflecting on, and remembering it.

Self-improvement is fueled by a balance of positive and critical feedback; we need to ensure that the negative doesn't wash out the positive. Sure, without glowing praise once in a while things would be a little less awkward, but our ability to learn would be at risk and our lives in general would be much more unhappy.

This New Year, I'm committing to more frequently giving praise, more comfortably receiving it, and more diligently remembering it. I'm doing this by keeping a log of compliments given and received, as something to go back and read during glum times. And because you seem like a wonderful human being, I invite you to join me to do the same.

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