My Feedback Thoughts

It was interesting reading these articles.  Historically I'm probably not very good at receiving feedback, or, more specifically, at receiving constructive criticism.  It's good to be reminded that it's normal to feel uncomfortable when receiving less than glowing feedback.

However, another interesting thing was seeing the concept of receiving feedback framed in such a different context than I am used to seeing it.  I felt as though these articles mainly focused on how to use feedback while maintaining a healthy self-esteem.  I have been accustomed to thinking of it as more an issue of humility.  I don't mean down-on-yourself, I'm-not-as-good-as-everyone-else type humility.  I mean a humility that abandons self-bias.  C. S. Lewis talks (I think in the Screwtape Letters?) about a humility that makes a man able to rejoice in skills or a job well done equally whether it belongs to him or his neighbor: his joy is not the more because the skill is his, but just because it is his he does not underestimate its value.  Developing that sort of humility, rather than simply trying to bolster our own self-esteem all the time, seems conducive to accepting feedback with grace.

Another quick thought I had was about the idea of "emotional first aid" as talked about in "Why rejection hurts so much -- and what to do about it."  Winch talks about boosting your feelings of self-worth through listing meaningful qualities you possess, such as having a good work ethic.  In other words "remind yourself of your value, which comes from what you do.  If you mess up in those areas, you'd better have some other skill to fall back on, because your worth is based on what you do."  Or at least that's how it felt to me.  It seemed like a horribly depressing and rather unhealthy thing to fall back on, actually.  I don't want to be defined by what I'm good or bad at.

(Jelynegermata)