Dealing with Negative Feedback - Part 5

Negative feedback can be hard to hear. No doubt about it. 

This week I’ve been talking about how to deal with negative feedback without spinning out about it. 

I started with what WASN’T the solution: trying to never make another mistake or being so perfect no one can say anything negative about you.

Then I gave the first four steps: 

1️⃣ Don’t rush to react. 

2️⃣ Get curious about your reaction to the feedback - separate the actual words that were said or written from the story you are telling yourself about the feedback. 

3️⃣ Reframe how you think about feedback generally and explore the specific feedback you’ve received from a place of curiosity.

4️⃣ Figure out what your options are for responding to the feedback (including ignoring it) and pick one that aligns with your values, is congruent with how you want to show up in the world, and is based on reasons you like. 

The fifth and MOST important step? 

5️⃣ Shore up your self-concept. 

Negative feedback sends us into a spin when we take it as an indictment on our worth as a human being. When it confirms a negative belief we already have about ourselves. When we make it mean we are bad or dumb or lazy or unworthy or unlovable or that there is something fundamentally wrong with you or whatever other story you are already telling yourself on repeat. 

This way of thinking is unintentional. 

You have to start deciding intentionally how you want to think about and talk to yourself. 

The rest of the steps I’ve given flow naturally from this. 

But that change doesn’t happen overnight. Or magically. 

It takes practice. 

The same way you’ve been unconsciously practicing negative thoughts about yourself your whole life. 

Telling yourself stories that don’t serve you. 

That have been made up by your brain and/or fed to you quietly or loudly from innumerable sources throughout your life. 

Which makes your brain hyper-vigilant and has it constantly on the lookout for and manufacturing “evidence” that confirms the false and negative narrative you have about yourself and your worth. 

Those stories impact your emotional experience of feedback. And your day-to-day emotional experience. And the way you show up in the world. 

It can feel daunting when you start to think about unwinding any kind of social conditioning. Longstanding thought patterns. Longstanding stories about yourself and your life. 

It helps to have someone in your corner that has enough belief for the both of you. An objective eye to help you see where the stories and conditioning are holding you back. To help flip the narrative you have about yourself. 

Someone who absolutely believes you are whole and lovable and deserving and capable of having everything you want. Even when you don’t. 

I love helping women with exactly this. Send me a DM or sign up for a free consult jenndealcoaching.as.me/consult. A one hour call that will start you down a beautiful path. 

Let the unwinding begin.