Fear Not Feedback

I recently had some feedback about my participation and performance at a workshop. The feedback stung. As I listened to what was said I felt warm at the back of my neck. My arms were tightening. I could feel a surge of something rising in my chest. My body was responding chemically, neurologically, and physically as if I was under attack. I could feel that my body was preparing for a fight.

Thankfully I’m not just a body full of impulses and emotions. I have a brain too. A brain that I actively train for awareness and discernment. So, while my natural physical responses were heading down the path of fear toward defensiveness, the addition of my brain’s engagement, and the application of it’s training diffused my experience.

I was able to really listen to the feedback, and take it in. I was able to recognize and understand the perspective from which the observations about me and my performance were made. I was able to recognize and feel disappointment and sadness around not having performed at my typical level.

Most important though I was able to decide how I wanted to feel about the information that was delivered, and to decide what I was going to do about it. That made all the difference.

But for so many of us, far too often, our response to any feedback that’s not praise is to shut down or push back.

This is especially true for us high achievers. Yeah, we dig positive feedback. And yes, affirmation of our magnificence is almost as crucial to our survival as the air we breathe. But feedback that is “constructive” or “developmental” is something different altogether.

Despite our often overtly stated desire to continue to learn, grow, and improve. Many of us struggle just to hear critical feedback, to say nothing of actually listening to and taking it on. As a result, and counter intuitively, we actually shut ourselves off from all that we want including greater achievement, success, recognition, reward, and happiness.

It hurts when people tell us that their experience of our skills, our ideas, our work product, or even our demeanor is less than perfect. It’s shocking for someone to rate our performance as mediocre or short of top notch. It can diminish our feeling of value as professionals, even as people. It can seem like a threat.  And, at times, it’s nearly debilitating.

So we deflect. We retreat. We defend. And if we’re not careful, we get stuck.

The ability to receive and assimilate critical feedback is essential for success and fulfillment. Feedback is not a foe to be fought off. It is, in fact, unmatched in terms of what it can show and teach us on our path to success and fulfillment. But if we crumble in a pile of emotion and defensiveness in the face of it we distance ourselves from it’s value.

Thankfully, like me, all of you have brains too! So your success shall not be made or broken solely based on your natural physical or emotional responses to feedback. Each of us is a system capable of sensing, evaluating and acting on many levels:  intuitive, emotional, physical, and mental. Just like in an effective, high functioning organization it takes ALL roles and levels to create success.

Active engagement in responding to and incorporating feedback is a practice. It is consciously developed and honed as a part of a broader endeavor to deliberately create success. It is a focused training effort the outcome of which will open up what would otherwise be closed off.

So fear not feedback. Welcome it. Challenge yourself to understand it. Let your ego step aside and allow feedback to show you the way to your greatest potential performance, your true success, and your full happiness.