You Might Be Giving Bad Compliments

The two steps I use to let people know I admire them.

Zulie Rane
6 min readJun 4, 2019

I believe most people are bad at giving compliments.

This is something I’ve realized over the course of my life. Most of us, when faced with the chance to let others know what we like about them, fumble the finish. We don’t stick the landing. But why?

So often, someone you know, or know of, has just done something amazing. You want to tell them! You want to let them know that you like what they did. Not for any personal gain, but just to share your appreciation.

That is a pure, wonderful compliment.

What is a compliment? You might think it’s just a nice thing to say to someone. That’s true, but in my opinion, it goes a lot deeper than that.

A compliment is unsolicited, positive feedback. Nobody asked you for a compliment, but you’ve gone right on out there anyway, and told them that they’re doing something — be it dressing, writing, or just living — really well.

But what you shouldn’t forget is that you’re commenting on an aspect of someone’s life. You’re giving them your approval of something, whether they want it or not. So it’s worth making sure that you set it up correctly, so you don’t come off as insincere or even insulting.

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Zulie Rane

Writer and cat mom. Opinions are my own. This is my just-for-fun profile! My official Medium profile is @Zulie_at_Medium.