In this brief instructional video, Dr. Noah St John explains why many people struggle to accept compliments, attributing the difficulty to a mental pattern he calls "head trash"—the internal voice that repeats the belief "I'm not enough." He describes how compliments directly challenge this negative self‑reflection, causing people to deflect or downplay the praise. To break the habit, he offers a simple two‑step method: (1) say "thank you" when receiving a compliment, and (2) stop talking about it ("shut up"). He demonstrates the approach with a conversational example, showing how a straightforward, appreciative response feels better than self‑deprecating or dismissive replies.
Why do we have such a hard time accepting compliments from people?
That's one of the reasons or one of the manifestations of what I call head trash. Now your head trash is that guy in your head that says, I'm not enough, right? If there's a default human belief, that default human belief is, I'm not enough. And so when someone comes up to you or writes to you or whatever and gives you a compliment, what's happening is it is coming in direct confrontation with your head trash, which I also call your Your negative self-reflection or your negative reflection. And so the basic thing that comes to us is I'm not enough. And so we grow up with this belief that says I'm not enough. And so when somebody gives you a compliment, hey, you look really nice today. Oh, you mean this whole thing? Oh man, my hair is a mess. And I didn't even shave today. And so one of the things I like to teach my clients, I'm really glad you brought this up, Jenny, because this is one thing that we talk about a lot, is how to accept a compliment. I'll share with you my 2-step method to accept a compliment. So the first step is say thank you. Step 2, shut up. Better than I. Yes. And so I said, and people give me a compliment. No, you changed my life. You just gave me a compliment. And did you notice that I didn't deflect it? I said, thank you, that's great, that's awesome.
Yes, some people go, oh, you look pretty. I literally reply with, don't I? And they laugh and I laugh. And I'm like, it is so much better than going like, oh no, I don't, you know.
And what's the other way to think about it for yourself and for everybody listening is think of it like a gift. People are giving you a gift when they give you a compliment. It's a sincere compliment. Hey, you look great today, you know, that's really nice. Or you did a great job on that presentation, or blah blah blah, whatever it is. And they're being sincere. You treat it like a gift.
