Get ready to explore the phenomenon of compliment aversion, particularly among individuals pursuing significant goals.
This is a discussion that, for these individuals, praise can be perceived as a distraction, disrupting focus and creating a need for cognitive context switching. Compliments, especially mid-project, can undermine motivation by creating a temporal mismatch and a false sense of completion.
Furthermore, this episode examines how insincere or unsupported compliments can erode trust, training the brain to associate praise with manipulation or abandonment.
The episode wraps up with proposed strategies for more effective feedback, such as reflective questioning, objective observations, and consistent support that aligns words with actions, to better encourage and rebuild trust with goal-oriented individuals.
Read the original essay on Substack.
