How do you handle negative feedback without losing motivation?

Handling negative feedback can be challenging but essential for personal and professional growth. Adopt a mindset that views feedback as an opportunity for improvement rather than a personal attack. Understand that feedback can help you identify areas for growth and enhance your skills. Try to separate feedback from self-worth, and remember that feedback is about your actions or work, not your value. Avoid taking it personally and instead focus on the specific aspects being addressed.

Failures are just as important as achievements. Feedback is not to put you down, ruin your self esteem or make you feel attacked. It’s there to show you the path to take to get from one spot to another. Maybe you aren’t good at time management and your boss mentions that you missed a critical deadline. Collaborate together on how you can make a plan to overcome that weakness. It will help you build good habits and turn those weaknesses into strengths.

There's a big difference between constructive criticism and straight out criticism. Constructive criticism can be much easier to handle, because it helps you see areas for opportunity rather than faults and deficits. When someone is critical of you or your work, try to frame their feedback as constructive criticism in your own mind. Ask yourself: - What can I learn? - What can I do differently? - Is this feedback valid? Would others offer this same feedback in a different way? - How can I learn from this while letting go of the emotions around being attacked? Reframing it as a learning situation and separating out your feelings about the delivery of the information is critical in helping you handle what was said.

If the feedback seems vague or unclear, ask for specific examples or further explanations. This will help you better understand the feedback and identify actionable steps for improvement.

Feedback need not be on the negative, but should always include the achievements and good skills someone brings to the table as well. I've seen managers share vague feedback on what's working and what's not, but the best way to make feedback useful is to drill it down to the HOW to make something work rather than the "What". Start from the assumption the team is doing what they think is best, and help them with identifying the steps that can help them improve. It is much more thoughtful and effective to devise a step-wise plan to improvement. In my experience, it automatically reduces the dismissal of the feedback as it allows the manager and the team member to be more accurate, specific with the intention of skill development/improvement.

Surely, delivering negative feedback is challenging but it gets only more difficult when explained poorly or unkindly. Constructive criticism can bring endless numbers of benefits to an individual’s professional growth. Essentially individuals must learn how to navigate conversations without slanting into any uncomfortable situations. The technique of offering negative feedback is to have the emotional intelligence to avoid awkwardness. Highlighting why bringing change is the only constant may bring more life-enhancing experiences to individuals.

Learning from feedback and separating your emotions from the delivery requires a few things. First, you need to evaluate whether there is learning, or if you find the person who delivered that information unreliable. If there are learnings, you might also discuss how that information could be given to you constructively the next time around. If it was delivered in a thoughtful way, recognize that everyone has room for learning and growing, and that's actually a good thing.

Talk to actual people. Don't be fooled by what people post on social media. This is where you can begin to feel truly alone in what you perceive as failure. Most people don't post about their failures or criticism they've been given, so unless you open this conversation with real people, you won't understand just how normal being in this position is.

In my experience, negative feedback when presented with proper tone, can be an invaluable learning experience. Coaching is a two-way street. The presenter needs to see a positive outcome from the feedback he/she is giving and keep the tone of the presentation positive. The learner needs to keep an open mind, ask constructive questions and help to form a collaboration with the coach. I have found that many times when approached in a negative manner, or have not felt included in the process, my response has been negative. At the same time, repetitive negative behavior becomes very difficult to keep positive when corrective action needs to take place. Even then, when there is a detailed guideline for success, this can be kept positive.

Initially, negative feedback can be disheartening. Take a step back, give yourself time to process the feedback, and avoid reacting impulsively. Reflect on the feedback and consider its validity and potential areas for improvement. If you receive similar feedback from multiple sources, it may indicate a genuine area for improvement. Identifying patterns can help you recognize areas where you need to focus your efforts. Negative feedback often contains valuable insights and suggestions for improvement. Pay attention to the constructive elements and use them as a guide to enhance your skills or work.

If we look at the feedback as a reflection of our contribution, or a chance to add further value through our work, it would motivate us to seek critical feedback over and over again. As an exercise we should try to look at how the quality of deliverables changed before the feedback versus after we applied our learnings to our work.

It can be too easy to want to correct feedback or jump in and solve someone's problem. I think about the reaction I would want from a leader and find it most impactful to take a step back, thank the person for their honest feedback, (which was likely tough for them to voice,) and ask their opinion on what we can do moving forward. This creates a space where they feel heard and are more motivated to communicate and submit ideas, knowing it's a safe and collaborative environment.