Dealing with Negative Feedback - Part 3

Feeling defensive or ashamed about feedback? Time for a mindset shift.

Yesterday, I gave you the first two steps for dealing with negative feedback - without the spin out: (1) don’t rush to react; and (2) get curious about your reaction to the feedback.

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. 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? A source with good motives? A source that actually has any power over your career or your life? A source 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 even if just partially. That someone else’s opinion matters.

You don’t, it isn’t, and it doesn’t. 

Tomorrow, we will talk about deciding what your options are for responding to the feedback. 

A ♥️ note to you: Learning how not to take feedback so personally will be a total game changer for you. Not only will you not avoid it - you might actually seek it out. Feedback can be a gift—one that really helps you move your career forward and become amazing at your job—but only if you can receive it in a way that serves you. I can help you get there. To get started, send me an email (jenn@jenndealcoaching.com) or sign up for a free call with me at jenndealcoaching.as.me/consult.