Feedback Loop, are you caught in it?

At the end of every workshop, I ask participants for their feedback. It’s a common practice that helps me grow as a coach and fine-tune processes for my coaching company, StrengthMiner. Although I teach and have been practicing receiving feedback for years, I find myself time and again, taking it way too personally and getting wound up over it.?

In this thought journal, I want to address three aspects of feedback that have been a recurring theme for me over the last few months.?

1 The art of receiving feedback.

The nature of my personal coaching style is to allow people to engage in ideas and topics to help them grow. Meaning, I’m often on the receiving end of feedback when I challenge deeply rooted principles or beliefs. In times like that, I find myself asking what’s the best way to receive feedback without it affecting my emotions.?

Ideally, when getting feedback, we should be open to listening without pushback and respond rather than react. However, that can be really hard to do, if the feedback feels personal. Feels like an attack to a core belief or cultural aspect.?

My coaching work and the people I interact with are part of my purpose. I love to nurture people, so when I hear feedback that doesn’t align with my principles or beliefs - it’s hard to see it objectively. So, I fall back to the very thing I teach:?

• Be open to listening without pushback.
• Respond rather than react.?

I may sound repetitive, and that’s because repeating the steps above can assuage a heated moment, where you want to reply to a hard statement. Let’s be honest, not all feedback comes from a place of fact or reason. Leading me to my next point.?

2 How to Discern Constructive Feedback

Before anything else, look at feedback from a growth mindset. This helps you approach things analytically rather than emotionally. Secondly, analyze whom and where it is coming from. Is the person someone you trust, an expert in their field and does the feedback come with the intention to help you grow or to hurt??

In every industry I’ve worked with, I’ve observed pushback of both kinds. However, the only way to navigate it is to work with it. To see it from the perspective of, “Does this information help me grow professionally?” That means putting on those ‘growth mindset’ spectacles. It makes it easier to discern feedback as being malicious or constructive.

3 Realize that not All Feedback Hit the Same

If someone were to give me feedback about how to go on a walk with my dogs, it would hardly register on my radar. However, being given “advice” about my coaching style or my farming methods may hit a little harder.?

We receive feedback differently when it’s something that doesn’t mean much to us. So, when you find yourself taking something too personally, try to ask yourself if the same feedback was given to another aspect of your life, would it affect you the same? I find it puts things into perspective - especially if it’s something that’s triggering or emotionally difficult to digest.?

The more I discover the ways to communicate feedback, the more artful it gets. The more subjective it is. Therefore if you’ve taken anything from this little thought journal of mine, it should be this: Listen, reflect, and then decide whether to accept and what to do with feedback given to you - while staying honest with yourself.?