Shock Points Around Feedback
Fear of feedback when perceived as criticism can lead to a paralyzing fear of making mistakes keeping you from taking any action. It can also keep you stuck in doubt. When mistakes are made, you may turn that experience inwards as inner dialogue that is also highly critical and stressful. This is how you disempower yourself. Feedback to yourself can be much harsher than what someone else will say to you.
My client had a job where her work was constantly surveyed for accuracy in coding details. She felt so triggered every time she received feedback that she was wanted to quit her job. The feedback she received was stressful and felt disempowering.
Feedback is FUN!
She was able to shift her attitude by using a simple short and snappy “sarcastic” turnaround mantra. Every time she felt triggered by feedback, she said to herself in a sassy voice “Feedback is FUN!” She was able to flood her emotions of self-pity and feelings of personal attack and lighten up in the moment with humor. She stuck with this strategy and found that she learned to value how essential her role was for the financial health of the company. Her attitude shifted significantly when she could shift her perspective to feel more neutral and less triggered when receiving feedback.
It’s never easy to receive feedback for anyone who values doing a good job in any role. By human nature, we typically focus on what didn’t go well vs. highlighting what did go well.
It can be hard to hear positive feedback when you are swimming in the perception of “bad” or done “wrong” or “I’m not good enough” feedback.
Turning around your negative response to feedback or your demoralizing attitude when mistakes are made, takes a discipline of humility and self-honesty.
The Art of Delivering Feedback
There is an art to delivering feedback that empowers and supports refinement or improvement. It is also important to have a strategy for yourself so you can stay open to feedback as a “growth opportunity” and not as a personal assault on your character. This is not easy to unwind this deeply rooted pattern that keeps you stuck in the “I failed” mindset.
When offering feedback there is a strategy to address what can empower someone to take the feedback in. We use these steps specifically with clients I work with who are diagnosed with PTSD. This strategy can work for your co-workers, your kids or your partner.
- First ask if the person is open to hearing feedback. Asking permission honors their autonomy. This question lets them know you have information to share, and they are at choice to hear what you have to say. They can emotionally prepare themselves for what is coming in a state of readiness without feeling “blindsided” from left field.
- Start with what was done well, from a reality assessment. Be honest. Human nature goes straight to the negative every time but by starting with the positive focus of what went well supports the other person to stay receptive and open to your conversation.
- You can even start with asking the other person what they felt they did well from a self-assessment perspective.
- You can ask “What might you do differently next time?” honors their own self-assessment with humility.
- Then deliver the feedback for improvement or enhancement using the words that are devoid of judgment of good vs. bad
- What can be even better next time….
- An enhancement going forward
- Another approach to do this is…….
- Then check-in and ask what they are taking away from your conversation.
These simple steps support the other person to stay open and actually hear what you are offering for feedback so it can land and be taken in as self-awareness. This approach honors what they did well first. It co-empowers when you ask permission to offer opportunities as an enhancement and not a judgement.
Create Boundaries
If you are the receiver of feedback. It’s important to have boundaries for how you will be able to receive the feedback. Informing that key person simply by asking for what you need to be able to hear their feedback and take it in. “If you offer me feedback on the fly or out of the blue, I can’t hear it to take it in. It shuts me down. I would ask that you always ask me first if I’m open to feedback. Sometimes the timing is not good for me and I would prefer to hear it at a later time. But if I know it is coming, I can assemble myself internally to hear what is offered from a place of freewill and humility.” Maybe there is a place and timing that is more suitable than the times when it’s offered, and you are not expecting it.
One of the strategies I use when bracing to hear feedback is to take some deep breaths into my Center, that power place (aka Dantian) that helps me to stay grounded and anchored into my body. I can breathe deeply into my lower belly; 3 finger breadths below my naval and back towards my spine. I can brace my feet to connect with the earth. This will support my hormones to stay out of the fight or flight response so I can “meet the challenge” and stay open to what is being shared. I can actually hear what is being said and remind myself that this is offered in the spirit of supporting me to gain learning from the experience.
When you meet the confrontation or challenge of feedback successfully to gain the illumination or a lesson, you will actually increase in your measure of self-worth. It’s a direct energy deposit anytime you are able to successfully meet and engage with the energy of confrontation (feedback) with the spirit of meeting it as a personal challenge.
You can empower yourself when you let your “feedbackers” in your life know that you would always appreciate if they will ask permission first to support your autonomy and ability to stay open to their message.
Getting it “right” implies you are reaching a destination of perfection without mistakes but the journey to mastery is a continuum of steady improvement and skill that you can build on without an endpoint.
Let Go of Judgement and Perfection
Here is the paradox: getting it right and fear of making mistakes will keep you from taking any action, so you can avoid feedback. AND if you don’t risk making mistakes, and not looking perfect, how will you grow and develop mastery of a skill?
Keeping the judgement out of feedback as good vs. bad is an art form for both those who deliver feedback as well as when you receive feedback. Feedback can also be seen as an opportunity for learning if you can integrate the feedback as an enhancement and not an assault on your character. This invites into your character the discipline of honesty, humility and at times humor so you can stay centered to feel neutral and not triggered by feedback.
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