Listen to feedback that interests me at the time or supports my ego. Reject all other feedback.

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Consider all feedback received for the potential growth. Struggle with dis confirming feedback.

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Seek out all feedback. Where can I improve?

This is a hugely over simplified model of how my journey of feedback has progressed, but it does its job.

I, like most, started in a space that was only interested in feedback that supported the story in my head. Feedback that confirmed I was doing good, that I was a Rock star etc. There was no time for any feedback that posed a threat to this story and it was ruthlessly argued against. I would be angry and reactive to this feedback and the people or situations that presented it.

Then I started to think differently. I wanted to become a leader in my role, I began to read and listen, I started to realise that self awareness was a huge deal and that there was a different way to live than the reactive, angry and unfulfilled person that I was.

I started to realise that feedback was an important piece to this puzzle but that it was also an astoundingly hard thing to accept. I had “learned” that there was growth in all feedback but I still couldn’t take the harsher stuff well in the moment. I would still reject some of the dis confirming stuff but I was in a weird spot where I thought that I had it figured out so I thought I was crushing the feedback game, but from the outside it was clear I was not. I think this is always part of the journey, start learning and instantly think it’s figured out. It’s not.

As I received more and more feedback, I made plenty more mistakes with that information. I started noticing that there was nearly always growth potential in every block of feedback and I was getting to a stage where that awareness was happening sooner and sooner after the initial emotions subsided.

I also noticed that if I didn’t seek out the feedback myself that my growth would be dictated by the feedback I received from other people. This works for a while, and can make it seem like everything is good and peachy, but eventually we need to ruthlessly seek it out if we are to move to the next level. It actually became clear that I could kind of hide at the stage as feedback is uncomfortable for everyone. Odds are that I just wouldn’t receive any and that would mean that I could just float along with the Rock star story in my head and sail off into the average.

I want to be better that that, though even as I write this I know deep down I still live in that boat occasionally. It’s an easy life but it will never be a great one.

So here I am, at some kind of stage between seeking out feedback and still struggling with dis confirming information. I now “know” that there is growth in every interaction and I can action it much better. I’d love to say that once you move to the next stage of feedback that you don’t regress but I haven’t found that for myself. I have found that I notice a lot quicker when I have not lived to my expectation and I re calibrate in a hurry.

The hardest hitting observation I have found through my journey is that every stage was on me. It’s easy at the start to think that other people dictate where we are but it was always on me. As I grew and developed, it became clear. My journey is completely in my control.

I’d like to write this again in 20 years and add another level – Super Stoic Feedback Ninja – but for now I will just have to settle for seeking feedback often, making mistakes, and growing from each interaction.

Where are you on your feedback journey?

Pursue your potential

Dice