We were just coming out of lockdown and I was training for a charity boxing match. Covid was still very much present and I came home from school one afternoon in October 2021 feeling pretty rubbish. My wife said I looked awful and sent me for a PCR test at the pop-up centre (and it turned out I did have covid). I came home and curled up in bed, listening to my wife talk to our niece on the phone. They hadn’t seen each other for months and had found a way to play together with our neice’s dolls over video phone – my wife was asking questions about the dolls and she was telling stories, having them act out scenes from her imagination. I just laid there listening, enjoying their virtual connection, their joy and their gratitude at being together.
I was marvelling a this magnificent 3-year-old share her world with her aunty who was miles away as if she was in the room playing alongside her, and I thought how wonderful it was that she was taking it all in her stride, finding ways to maintain and develop a relationship with the tools and resources she’d been given. She sounded so fulfilled, so joyful, playful and kind. It just struck me how brilliant it is to be a kid because they get to be all of themselves without any preconceptions or judgements. She didn’t know anything different of the world and was busy getting on with doing her thing. So I lifted my head and said to her, “Isha, you are amazing.”
“I AM AMAZING!” Came her reply, and I couldn’t help but giggle at her innate confidence, self-assurance, and honesty. She genuinely knows she is brilliant, because she’s 5 now and I said something similar to her recently and once again she agreed with me. She’s a powerhouse and she knows it.
How often does someone give you a compliment and you shrug it off?
When you’ve done something that you have every right to be proud of, how do you react? With humility, pride, bashfulness?
What would you say right now if someone called you over and said, ‘hey, you’re amazing!’
Well, here’s what we did. We kept it! We use it daily and it’s become common practice in our house to randomly shout up the stairs to the other person, “Hey! You’re amazing!” But the most important part is the reply – that’s a new rule as well – because the only acceptable response is, “I AM amazing!”
At first it was a game but now it’s kinda replaced ‘thank you’…
[Wife brings me a cup of tea] “You’re amazing!” … “I am amazing!”
[I put the washing away from the clothes dryer] Wife: “You’re amazing!”… “I am amazing!”
[One of us remembers to pick up the shopping list and the other one says] “You’re amazing!”… “I AM amazing!”
We’ve even got our friends at it. The other day I told a mate this story and shortly after she told me about how she’s been smashing it at work. I replied, “you’re amazing!” and at first she brushed it off and tried to tell me about how much self-doubt she felt leading up to the project, so I reminded her that’s no longer a suitable response and said again, in ernest, “you’re amazing!” To which she replied, “I AM amazing!”
We might be culturally predisposed to brush off compliments and we might think it’s honourable to be humble but what we focus on and what we say to ourselves we start to believe. If I tell myself I’m wracked with self-doubt, the next time there’s an opportunity to doubt my abilities, I will. If I tell myself I’m amazing enough times I will start to believe it. If someone else who loves me does the same, that’s adding fuel to the belief, and I’ll start to believe it sooner and with more conviction. If multiple people in my life start telling me, and they do it for genuine reasons, that’s like turbo-charging a positive belief system I’m trying to build about myself and helping to secure some real self-esteem in there.
Mark Leary (Wake Forest University, 1999) is one of the many psychologists who writes about self-esteem and he posits that it’s not just about how positively a person feels towards themselves, but it’s brought about by that person succeeding, receiving genuine praise or love. So to witness myself doing something well, being kind or generous, and to have that acknowledged by someone else with such conviction can’t help but make me smile.
If you’re curious about other ways we can train our brain to be kinder, gentler or more productive, consider registering for the upcoming webinar. We’ll be discussing:
🎓 How to help young people plan for a future filled with satisfaction and success.
😍 The role of self-knowledge in our wellbeing and mental health.
😎 Why the physiology of the teenage brain makes this the perfect time to consider personal development.
💚 How we move from fear to fulfillment in every aspect of our lives.
In the meantime, why not give it a go for yourself? Share this post with someone you think is amazing and start reminding each other every time you have reason to celebrate it.