facing praise

When someone praises me, it puts me into a program error kind of situation – output freezes sometimes, I try to make my face expressionless, skip it as if I didn’t hear it and talk about something else, mumble something etc. It is not humility, it is about lack of emotional intelligence to acknowledge the praise. I should just thank even if it I don’t think it is earned and move on. Sometimes I think it is imposter syndrome playing a part where I don’t think deep down I deserve the praise, sometimes it is truly not deserved and people just say things to make you happy, but sometimes there maybe some truth to it.

It all came back to me today when someone did the same thing. I thought the person thoroughly deserved it, but pulled all the tricks in the book to avoid acknowledging the good thing. She ignored, downplayed, felt bad about others who deserved more, felt bad about her team who didn’t get what they deserved, in fact even said it is somehow going to cause her harm and said she doesn’t know what it means. I said relax, acknowledge and enjoy the moment. There is time to worry about everyone else and there is time to enjoy an individual accomplishment also. I knew she was doing it because the her nature is not allowing her to acknowledge the good thing that is happening to her. I realized then that I do the same and it doesn’t look good.

When faced with praise, be humble, acknowledge, thank, take credit and take pleasure for what it’s worth, leave it if you truly think you didn’t deserve it and move on graciously.