How to Learn from Criticism

Today, I want to talk about learning how learning from criticism, how to take criticism, how hard you try, it's often difficult to hear any type of criticism, especially when it's about your work. And if you are creative, even more so because you are your work and it's very personal, it can cause us to second guess ourselves. And worse, it might even make you stop doing whatever it was that you wanted to do.

 

It might send you into a tailspin and like wondering and thinking and round and round it doesn't have to. In fact, the most criticism can be turned into like valuable feedback even. It sometimes feels like a very negative experience. One thing we really have to remember is that most of the time when someone is giving you feedback, it's not usually an attack. Most critiques are not about attacking you. The person, even sometimes when it's given negatively, they're often like kernels of truth that you can gather from it.

 

You just have to let go of the emotion. And even if you pretend it's not an attack and lies with the critique was without passion and emotion, without being personal about it, it's normally about your work and or how you're doing something, not about you. The person. Something else that you can do when reacting to criticism is listen carefully and try not to react when the critique or that feedback happens. Either listen or read it with a minimum emotion as possible.

 

You want to take or take all of the information in and just listen to it for complete understanding. Don't make assumptions or rush through. If it's a conversation, it's OK to ask questions, but don't interrupt. If you're reading it, that's usually easier. Just read it out loud and let it rest and sit for a bit, then come back and read it again to make sure what you originally thought when you're just like rushing through is exactly what's being said.

 

Once you allow yourself to kind of sit and understand as much as you can, as much as you think you can, now you can ask for clarification of things that you're not sure about and you do this carefully without sounding defensive. The idea is to say, OK, I've I've heard this feedback. I just want to clarify X, Y and Z. I just want to check is this exactly what you meant? Because your understanding of what they have said or written might not always be the same thing.

 

Now, as I mentioned before, try not to take it personally, even if it's someone trying to get under your skin with their feedback and usually they're not don't take it personally. Often criticism and feedback is more about the person delivering it than about you, the person, unless you have a mentor or coach giving you feedback and then that's a little different. Now, one really important thing is. Letting go of things that aren't factual, focus on the meat of the feedback at first, if the entire thing is someone's subjective or like just what they're thinking about, then you only need to talk about it with the person because it's just their opinion.

 

But and because it's not like truth, you know, it's OK. But if it is actual facts, that is what you need to focus on. One tactic is if someone is mad and they're giving you, the feedback is to mentally and physically delete anything that's not factual and just mean what they read and process the rest. So you just need to process the things that are facts and not subjective. And whenever you do get feedback, always, always say thank you what someone has given you and taken the time to give you feedback, it's vital that you thank them and follow up with them, especially if you can tell them how it helped you improve and or change something.

 

Getting feedback is an important part of improving yourself. No one ever gives you any type of feedback.

 

If no one ever gives you any type of feedback that doesn't make you uncomfortable, then you might be hanging out with the wrong people. Then yes, people instead of those who really want you to succeed, can really give you critical feedback. So consider hiring like a coach or a mentor or someone or having a group of people that are willing to give you regular critical feedback that is honest, transparent and upfront. This can only help you moving forward, because one thing that we're not taught is how to take feedback and to learn from it to improve ourselves.

 

Our writing, our reading, our business, our everyday lives, we can all improve. None of us is perfect. So take what is given to you as feedback, work on it, adjust and move forward and reiterate. Go back and check with a person if that's what they meant. That's the way to move forward and improve. Thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. If you have any questions for me, you want me to answer on the podcast, email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com.

 

Have a great rest of your week.