I find that criticism (including self-criticism) is far more helpful to me than compliments, since you can do something with criticism to improve yourself. The problem with it is that you have to be able to do this from a strong base of original self-confidence. Otherwise it is likely some form of self-abasement, reproducing bad parental criticism, not getting too far ahead of other people, fake humility, etc. -- all basically crippling responses. And it is very important to recognise that other people respond completely differently to criticism than you do -- they have their own demons to fight. Some people thrive on it; some people die under it. You can't tell unless you test it out gingerly. I have a very few students who come up and tell me that I am the first person to take them seriously in their whole lives, because I take what they say seriously enough to criticise it as hard as I can -- but 90% of my students would wither under that kind of criticism because they need lots of positives before you can venture a negative. I used to be judgemental about this -- the old boot camp, Marine corps method I personally learned under -- boy, shape up or ship out -- but I gave it up as stupid, thank goodness, a long time ago -- we are all wired differently.

yours, Peter T.