Strokes: why praise doesn't land
Someone praises your work — sincerely, specifically — and within a second your mind discounts it: they are being polite, they want something, it wasn't that good anyway. TA calls recognition a stroke, and many of us grew up under a quiet set of rules about strokes: don't ask for them, don't accept them too easily, don't give them to yourself. Claude Steiner named these the stroke economy.
The cost is not vanity; it is fuel. People who cannot take in positive strokes run on criticism and duty, and eventually on empty. The experiment is embarrassingly small: when praised, say “thank you” — full stop — and notice the urge to deflect. That urge is the old rule, visible at last. What is visible can be renegotiated.