I'm not the master of receiving negative feedback but I have learned to deal with it in a different way to what I once did.
Receiving negative feedback can eat away at us, make us feel hurt, and ultimately is not good for our wellbeing.
Previously, I would get angry and respond immediately. Doing anything in the heat of the moment seldom works out well. When we react from the wrong place the wrong thing occurs, further hurt.
I would spend hours if not days going over what the person said and how next time I would come back with a reply to shut them down.
As time moved on and I learned more about myself I realised that I was the one being hurt the most when I reacted immediately.
My reaction to the initial negative feedback and then the reaction to my negative reaction – a double whammy.
These days, knowing a lot more about how we can manage negative thoughts, I deal with it differently.
I now allow negative feedback to sit with me for a day, knowing it may occasionally linger in my thoughts or disrupt my sleep. I accept this as part of how the brain processes negative experiences.
The next day, I revisit the feedback with a clearer mind. Was it really as bad as it seemed the first time? Probably not. Then, I search for something positive — there's always something, even if it's just acknowledging that sometimes the issue lies within them, not me personally.
One piece of negative feedback I received following an online workshop hurt deeply – “As for those weird facial expressions, the presenter needs to take his job seriously”. How could I possibly find something constructive in such a personal and hurtful remark?
The following day I sent a message to the organiser asking if they would like me to change the presentation based on that piece of feedback, we were in our fourth year of working with them. The reply was not to change anything.
Their reply showed that they don't look at the feedback before sending it through. I then replied – “I hope that you are offering this person some support ” – understanding that hurting people inadvertently hurt people!
I now embrace my unique facial expressions as a positive, using them in our workshops to highlight the importance of being authentic—genuine and true to ourselves, as long as we’re not harming others in the process.
However, authenticity shouldn't come from a place that causes hurt. That's our responsibility. It requires self-awareness, self-control, and the ability to adjust our actions when necessary.
Hurting people might inadvertently hurt people however that is not an excuse for poor behaviour. It is just a reason, and not justification.
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Receiving Feedback.