Better to be the One Who Smiled First

I love this quote and it’s something I always try to do. When you first do it, you feel a bit daft, but before you know it you’ve had half a dozen conversations with random people and the daftness has definitely faded. If I didn’t do this, how else would I know that Snoop Dogg (or is he Snoop Lion now?) has a member of his posse called Rat a Tat Tat? It’s amazing what you can learn from random men in pubs!

  At the train station a few weeks ago, I ordered a couple of coffees and the lady behind the counter treated me like she’d just found out I had been round to her house and chopped all the arms off of her jumpers. She was really rude! As she crashed and banged cardboard coffee cups around and sighed at the fact I wanted milk, I found myself chatting nonsense at her. I went for the obvious weather smalltalk (grunt) wasn’t it busy today? (Another grunt) she must see all sorts in her job (grunt grunt) I could see the woman look at me like I was completely mental. As she finished our coffees and I paid I said; “have a lovely day”, the look on her face was priceless and she grunted back “yes you too” and then she actually smiled!

  For the last week, I’ve kept a note of every time someone’s paid me a compliment, when I started this, I thought it might be a really short list, but actually it hasn’t been. I’m normally really rubbish at taking compliments, so when someone says;

“That’s a nice skirt”, I’ll normally reply with something like “oh thanks, it was only £10.00 from Sainsburys, I’ve had it ages” (other supermarket clothing ranges are available)

  The first compliment I received was from someone telling me that my nails looked nice. They do, Sam who does my nails is a genius.

  As I made a note of the compliment, I thought I bet that’s the only one I write down. Then as I posted a link to last week’s blog, my friend Steph left me this message;

  To be honest it snowballed from there. I noticed even the tiniest of compliments “nice handbag”, “I really enjoy reading what you write”, and “Isn’t your dog well behaved” (Believe me that’s probably the biggest compliment I’ve EVER received!)

  My friend Paula also left me a voice message, which really made me smile and was just what I needed to hear at that point.

  I noticed that gratefully receiving the compliments, meant that in turn I said nice things to people and tried to help people where I could. I also noticed that I started to treat myself better. I’ve made time to go to the gym, I’ve taken Cyril for a walk, really enjoying the peace and quiet and the chance to just wander with him, rather than worrying about having to get back for something. I’ve made loads of lovely fresh food from scratch and enjoyed being in the kitchen. I’ve spent time in the garden painting the furniture, that I’ve been meaning to do for ages, I didn’t even get stressed when Cyril decided to help me and got paint on his bum. I even found myself saying no to things I really didn't want to do, as well as having the confidence to say when I didn't think things were right.

  I’ve also lost another pound this week, so that also added to my general sense of well being, even though after a weekend away with my sister and friend Julie, which involved Fish & chips, ice cream and wine, I’m not wholly sure I deserved it, but I’ll take it.

  So if you didn’t join in last week, this week just try it, see how many compliments you do get throughout the week and make a note of it, I guarantee it will put a smile on your face!