Disclaimer
Opinions expressed within the content are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any listed websites, their affiliates, any entity physical or otherwise, anything, anyone or any other form of matter that isn’t completely and uniquely, me.
7 July 2024
Praise (verb) - express warm approval or admiration of.
Praise (noun) – the expression of approval or admiration for someone or something.
Over the last few months, I’ve read and heard countless laments about burnout by people in the sustainability field. It is definitely difficult being the voice of the minority, rallying the rest of the world along so that we all don’t die a horrid apocalyptic death as the planet burns around us.
The statistics around praise these days are quite shocking. I just Googled, “statistics about praise” and found these:
1) 43% of employees globally think the recognition they receive at work feels like an empty gesture and is not meaningful.
2) 72 percent of employees across the world get praise less than once per week.
3) 82% of employees think it’s better to give someone praise than a gift.
Seems like a pretty simple thing to praise someone. Yet, you probably know firsthand that you don’t receive it or give it enough.
If you’re coming from a traditional background like mine, praise was something almost unheard of. Maybe you can relate to these statements:
Your results were never good enough, even if you were one of the highest in the class – you were still not the top.
Every time you were proud of something you did, there would be someone better who would be compared to you.
Praise would make you overconfident, therefore preventing you from working harder.
Are you nodding?
Now there are many different types of praise but let’s look at inflated praise and non-inflated praise. Inflated praise, as you can imagine, are hyperboles of admiration, probably undeserved. “You did an amazing job! No one else in the world could have pulled that off!” versus, “You did well tonight. We could all see how much work went into that project.”
Many times, when praise is given, to adults or children, the first example is used. Inflated praise when used with younger people with low self-esteem can backfire and make them quit to prevent failure in a future situation. Younger people with already high self-esteem levels however, when faced with inflated praise, became more narcissistic. And you’ve already read what happens with adults, we simply don’t believe it’s true.
So, we’re not happy with all the anonymous vitriol being spewed all over the internet nor are we content with ostentatious, grandiloquent, bombastic words that flow like verbal diarrhea from the mouths of insecure praise givers.
How then do we not be exhausted when clearly nothing works?
I’ve been reading the book, Humankind, A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman. Here, Bregman refutes many myths and assumptions that we have about human nature and human history. We’re always moving towards a more negative description of what human nature is, wild, violent, animalistic types of behaviours. However, science and philosophy and much of Bregman’s research show that humans evolved from solitary, supersmart, ‘neanderthals’ into the more friendly, sociable, and intelligent ‘homo puppy’. We’ve been bred to favour those who are nice. We want to be around those who are nice to us. We have blurred images of the nice person that we aspire to be.
So, why aren’t we nicer?
Media and society have programmed us to think that ‘nice guys finish last’. To prevent that, we build walls around our feelings and armor ourselves with narcissism, egos, and avarice so we don’t look weak. We fish for compliments, but we don’t give them, we’re unempathetic, and we create victim personas for ourselves.
All this just leads to the fatigue.
Our narrative is that we’re not good enough, that nothing we do is worth it, that we’re not the best. We imagine that those around us have it all figured out and that we’re flailing in the background, running a race we can never win.
What if we changed that narrative?
What if everyone just gave non-inflated praise where it was due, acknowledged work well done, communicated through feelings, good or bad, took a break to paus e and reflect on how far we’ve come rather than how much we’re lacking … ?
What if we all just started being a little nicer to everyone around us, and to ourselves?
What if we went back to those dreams of ‘happy ever after’ in a simple life rather than the Hollywood capitalist realism stories being fed to us?
Stop and smell the roses. Pat someone on the back. Give a stranger a hug.
Take a break.
At the end of the day, we’re all human and no one’s got it figured out.