Dealing with Negative Feedback - Part 3

This week I’m talking about how to deal with negative feedback - without the spin out. 

Yesterday, I gave you the first two steps: (1) don’t rush to react; and (2) get curious about your reaction to the feedback. (Link to prior post in the comments). 

Here’s the next:

3️⃣ Reframe how you think about feedback generally and explore this particular piece of feedback from a place of curiosity. 

Right now, you might think that feedback is something to be feared.

But you could decide that feedback is nothing more than: 

▫️Words on a piece of paper or screen or that someone said out loud.

▫️A data point. 

▫️An opportunity.

▫️A gift.

Feedback offers you the chance to:

▫️Learn something about yourself and about the person giving the feedback. 

▫️To ask useful questions. 

▫️To gather more information. 

▫️To potentially improve or grow.

▫️To build better relationships.

▫️To make more fully informed decisions about how you want to show up in the future, including whether you want to change anything at all.

A piece of feedback has a lot to offer if you approach it with curiosity instead of from a place of shame, embarrassment, defensiveness, frustration, or annoyance. And as I said yesterday, curiosity is the antidote to pretty much every negative emotion. It just feels better. 

Some questions to ask yourself about the actual words that were said and/or written (i.e., not the thing you are making it mean that goes beyond the actual words used or the story you are telling yourself about the feedback):

What can I learn from this feedback? 

Is the feedback useful? If so, how? 

Accurate or true? Fully, partially, not at all? Why or why not? 

Does it come from a source you trust or respect? With good motives? That actually has any power over your career or your life? That has done what you’re trying to do?

If you don’t think it is useful or accurate or if you don’t think the source is a good one, you don’t have to do anything with it. 

It’s common to believe that we do. That feedback is always objectively true. That someone else’s opinion, regardless of who they are, matters.

You don’t, it isn’t, and it doesn’t. 

Coming tomorrow: deciding how to respond to the feedback. 

A love note to you: If you already know this is your work, and you want help with learning to deal with negative feedback better or you want help with any other issue that’s causing you stress at work - let’s talk! You can absolutely have better day-to-day experience at work and that can start immediately. Just send me an email or sign up for a free consult with me at jenndealcoaching.as.me/consult. It’s a completely judgment-free zone where we will discuss your specific pain points, what’s causing them, and come up with a plan to address them.