I had a wonderful boss who said this all the time and I think it’s a wonderful way to consider feedback - because it gives you choice; do you choose to accept the gift, or to reject it? Let’s be honest, feedback can be tricky to accept, because sometimes people tell us stuff we don’t want to hear!

We can feel upset and hurt by feedback. If that happens, acknowledge the feedback and perhaps try it on. If the feedback was less than positive it can be hard to accept, and if that’s your reaction it’s often because it’s hit the mark.

Feedback is just that - someone feeding back to you what they think. It’s an opinion, and often subjective. When you receive feedback you can either accept or reject it. Either is interesting;

Accepting feedback can enable you to grow and develop - you may find new and different ways of doing things and gain insight to your approach and your thinking. By altering your behaviour you can adapt to more situations, training yourself to become flexible. Accepting feedback can be a quick process: Receive > Evaluate > Execute. 

Rejecting feedback can also enable you to grow and develop! But it takes a little more effort (and hurt) to get there. Consider why you want to reject some feedback. You will often have a gut reaction - if you allow yourself to reflect on the rejection you may find several reasons why you want to reject the feedback. And the ‘why’ may take you inwards to your own feelings and emotions - the next step is to find out if you’re ready to deal with this part of your own growth and self-realisation. 

I find it MUCH easier to give feedback than to receive it, particularly when I don’t like what I hear from others. I am currently enrolled on a course and I didn’t enjoy it at all for the first few weeks. The feedback I received on my assignments made me feel angry and annoyed. I considered leaving the course. I spoke to some good friends and they all told me to stop going if I didn’t enjoy it. But something made me continue. 

The next week I received feedback on my work and I got that same angry feeling. Instead of rejecting the feedback I decided to take some time to reflect. To my horror I realised that the reason I got so angry and wanted to reject the feedback was because it was absolutely true.

Now I was faced with a decision - what to do with this realisation.

It’s hard to accept our faults, particularly when they’re pointed out to us by others. It can feel like the other person is having a go, criticising us and it doesn’t feel good. Rejecting the feedback keeps the status quo, it protects us from dealing with our own shortcomings - or at least, what the person who gave us the feedback felt was our shortcomings. 

But is it so terrible to listen and accept that we’re not always doing well? To spend a few moments thinking about it. Maybe there’s something in it. Something that rings true. And if you choose to work on it you could emerge as a more rounded person. 

I thought about the feedback from my course tutor and realised that the reason I had wanted to stop doing the course was not because I didn’t enjoy it. It was because I was finding it hard to accept that I had some development to do, which required me to look deeper into who I am and why I am like that. And I made a decision - I wanted to step into that uncomfortable space and take a hard look at myself.

Once I had made the decision to tackle the feedback it was a little easier to deal with. I took a step back and thought about what would happen if I changed. It didn’t feel so terrible. 

Do you have what it takes to consider changing?