Episode 13: A New Approach To Feedback & Validation

For anyone who is out there trying to do something, put something out there, create something new, offer out their skills or expertise, feedback can be super alluring and super terrifying. It’s almost like we have this push pull relationship with feedback and validation that means we want it, but it also has the potential to crush us.

In todays episode I want to talk about what feedback we actually need to get, how we interpret that wisely and how we can build resilience and wisdom about what feedback means. I'm going to talk through 5 key things we need to consider to take on a new approach to feedback and validation. Get your notepad out, it's a good one!

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Hi, everyone. Welcome. Welcome back to the courage is calling podcast. I am so happy to be back with you and this week, digging into the idea of feedback and validation. So for anyone who is listening, who's Arthur right now, I to do something new or put something out there that they are creating. Um, if you're offering out your skills or expertise feedback, I know can be really alerting and also really terrifying.

It's almost like we have this push pole relationship with feedback and validation. That means that we want it. Like we crave it, but it also has the potential to crush us. Right. So, and today's episode, I want to talk briefly about what feedback really means. What feedback we really need to get how we interpret that wisely and how we can build resilience and wisdom up by what feedback means.

So if you can, I want you to scan back in your mind to a time when maybe you've received some tough feedback. Maybe it was something that was said to you by an old boss, a current boss, um, A client, a teacher, a parent, maybe you have to kind of dig back in the archives to remember that, or maybe it's often at the forefront of your mind. Um, well, I can vividly, I'm going to share it with you. A vivid memory that I have, um, of when I was 21 and I was living on my own in London, kind of first real, kind of big girl pants situation. I was just finishing up my youth work degree. And I had a placement at a youth at a youth center, um, that Kim with a placement mentor, um, and my placement mentor invited me over for dinner and, uh, at their house.

And we stopped after dinner and their living room. And they pulled out this piece of paper. It's like a four sheet of paper. And on, it was a list of things that they wanted to feed back to me about how I was struggling. Oh, even just talking about it right now is making my bottom clench. So, um, the things that they told me where, uh, we see that you are struggling to manage your money, uh, we can see that you are struggling to prioritize your university work.

We feel like you're struggling to pull your weight in the center and the center. And we feel like you're a struggling to stay grinded with the opportunities that you're getting to sing at the minute. Um, even just talking about it makes me want to be sick, uh, because like at that moment, you know, that's whatever, like it, 10 years ago, But I still remember it.

Um, and I was absolutely floored. I was devastated and I was so embarrassed. Um, and I know that some of that stuff was absolutely true, but I also know that I was 21 and I was at university for the first time. Um, I was in a placement. I was living in this big, big city. Um, I, as I was getting a lot of like singing opportunities at the time, which felt exciting for me, I was away from my family in Canada.

So yes, of course I was absolutely struggling with all those things, but it stung so hard at the time. And I was so overwhelmed by the kind of casual setting of dinner and then the heavy pulling end conversation. Um, um, that feedback was so hard to hear. And for so many years after, I really did hear a lot of what was said in that conversation ring over me in so many other roles that I had, you know, I would be questioning.

Am I ready? Am I sucking here with money? Like, am I, am I not pulling my weight? And this role , am I coming across as being cocky? Does everybody, is everybody else thinking this about me? Um, and so what was one person's observation into a really. Kind of formative period of my life actually set in motion, this new set of beliefs about myself.

Cause that's what happens. Right. Um, once we start to kind of think about things for long enough, it can, we can start to form them into these beliefs in our system. And then what happens is that beliefs become behaviors. So everybody, um, has beliefs. Kind of dictate their behavior. And so for me, there were these behavior sets that Kim to like either manage my beliefs about myself or counteract them.

And that looked like people-pleasing that looked like staying quiet more. Um, if you can believe that that looked like over-delivering, um, burning more quickly. And my later roles, it looked like sacrificing myself to the cause or being frugal to the point of like self punishment and really kind of toxic stuff.

Um, and so I wonder, does this ring any bells for you? Uh, can you think of a time in your life, in your work and your career? Whatever circumstance that you've received feedback, and it has become a belief about yourself and that that belief has shown in and behavior. And so it's for this reason that I think it's really important that particularly as women, we begin to understand. What feedback is when it's important, how we interpret it and how we can use it in the service of our own callings or aspirations, rather than have it, you know, silence us or stop us from doing the things we'd really love to do. And what I mean by that is the idea isn't to like fob off or be cold and robotic towards any kind of feedback, like shutting herself, dying from that, because that's, I think that's really inhuman of us to expect from ourselves. And it's impossible in fact, and it's really unfair, um, because. And every single one of us there is this part of us, this big part of us actually that really wants to be seen and witnessed that really wants to be acknowledged to mater to other people. And I believe that we absolutely should honor that part of ourselves that desires, respect, and appreciation and.

And we should know where the CFUs places are, uh, for us to go for that. Right. Um, and so it's a really imperative part of the conversation that we start to speak some new language and develop some new behaviors around feedback and validation. So they're kind of five things that I want to really quickly go through that. I think when we, when we're starting to kind of really re understand. The concept of getting feedback and getting validation or criticism or whatever that, uh, I think are just our K. Um, so the first thing is that it really, really matters who you ask, not everyone in your life is important to get feedback from.

And I think that our expectations around this are everything, um, Really the most important people to get feedback from if it's to do with, um, something that you're creating or producing our people here connected to the success of your work. So that's potential customers or clients or stakeholders. And so if you're asking close family members for feedback on something, Absolutely.

It has nothing to do with their interests or knowledge or that they don't have any stakes in that is a really slippery slope. Um, and I wonder if you can think of a time when you have asked the wrong person for feedback and often it's like kind of good intentions or, or they're just the closest people and you just really want their support, but often they're the wrong person to ask.

Um, and really, we only need to be considering the feedback of people who this really involves or, or might be important to you as well. So I wonder if you thought of a time where you've asked the wrong person for feedback on something that was really important to you and felt that real staying of disappointment or deflation when and their response, wasn't what you wanted.

Um, and what would it have meant for you to ask someone who really was more integral to the idea or to the work. The second thing I think is important to consider is that you get to decide if the feedback matters and you get to decide how it's interpreted. And so much of this process. Of that interpretation, um, is about cultivating real wisdom about what feedback is important to take on board.

So something that Tara Moore talks about a lot in her courses and in her book playing big is the idea that feedback only. Ever tells you about the person giving the feedback, feedback only ever tells you about the person giving the feedback. It doesn't tell you anything true about the work itself. And I really love this because when I, when I really started to understand this idea, it gives me so much freedom and autonomy to decide if the feedback I was getting was important for me to consider, um, And sometimes it is. I'm not saying that every time you get feedback from a client or whatever that you just say, oh, well, that's their opinion. That's their experience. Um, sometimes that feedback, if it is in, you know, if it is going to move your work forward and it is kind of critical to the progress of this idea or whatever, and maybe it is important for you to consider, but not.

Not always. Um, because really it does only ever tell you a bite, the person given the feedback. Um, and you'll see this like a good experiment to do to kind of validate this idea is go on Amazon, look up your favorite buy from your favorite author. Like a real, like, read that you just couldn't put Darren and adored and read the five star reviews, reviews, similar to what you would say. And then you will see that there will probably also be one-star reviews. There would be, there'll be people who did not connect with that book. So you will find both, but neither of them, like, remember this, neither of those five star or one star reviews actually tell you anything true about high gate.

The work of the author is it only tells you about the person. Giving the feedback about their expectations, their preferences, their likes and dislikes. So it really is important to consider if the feedback really matters and how you interpret it, remembering that it only ever tells you about the person giving up.

The third thing is that simply it's perfectly okay to not ask for feedback. Really, um, I really believe that there are times in our creative lives and our business journeys and our personal lives where it really is. Okay. And maybe even irrelevant to ask for feedback. Um, and I think that. Sometimes, what is most important for us to do is to just run with our intuition or our gut and not get side railed by asking for other people's opinions. Because what often happens when we do that, when we ask for feedback in the, in the very, like either embryonic stages of putting something together or creating something. Or when we ask for feedback, when we're in a really highly intuitive zone, it just halts our action and stops our momentum. And so if your gut is speaking to you about doing something, just keep at it, there may be time for feedback and opinions or considerations from other people during the road.

But when your intuition is leading, you just be led by that. Um, and I wonder if you know, on reflection, you can recall a time where you felt really in your flow and you find yourself really halted by someone else's feedback either asked for or not. The fourth thing that's, um, I think really interesting.

And as a different angle on this whole idea of feedback and validation, is that for women in particular w the ratio or the research shows that we are way more highly tuned in to feedback, because we have a much more sensitive. Uh, understanding of all the stuff surrounding feedback. So we're more switched on to body language, facial expressions, tone of voice.

We are interpreting that along with the words that people are saying we are taking in the entire room situation and person, not just the words. And so it isn't surprising then that. Often comes more fully loaded for women than it does for men. Um, we also research shows that we tend to laser focus in, on feedback and dwell on it longer.

And so, you know, it really has an impact on us in a totally different way than it does to men. And I think this comes from the idea that it jeopardizes our sense of likability whenever feedback and. It's brought in. Right? So when women only had likability to rely on before we had any access to finance or laws that protected us for our CFD or rights, we, we relied on being liked to get by. So, you know, so that any threat to our likability, nine mess. Fail very painful or scary, including feedback. Um, and I wonder what your experiences of likability. So have you ever find yourself in a situation where you've had a very visceral reaction to feedback given to you because you sense that it was jeopardizing your sense of likability and that, that feels very scary.

So that's definitely something to kind of. You know, say safe feedback and validation through the lens of that tuned in us that that women have in particular. And then finally, I'm probably most importantly, it's really important to consider that if you are doing something. You want to set you apart from other people from other whatever, or you're moving towards some really true important work or calling or whatever.

You're always going to face both sides of feedback. You're always going to FA face of validation and you're going to face criticism. There's just no escaping it. So if you're putting yourself out there into the world, If you're showing up, if you're sharing what you're doing, it's going to come. There's no escape in a, and so we've got to get comfortable with accepting that it is going to come and sometimes it's going to feel really good and our ego is going to enjoy.

And then sometimes it's really going to staying in our ego is going to be wounded, but ultimately we've got to have a firm footing in our own sense of pride and commitment and loyalty to our work, to our ideas. And that must be at the center because that's the only truth that we can really know. About the work is hard, committed and loyal.

We are to bring the idea to life when it's from that place that we can then hold both the validation and the criticism that might come more lightly. That's it? I hope it's helpful. To kind of think about this stuff in this way. I hope it releases you in some way, um, as always, thank you so much for tuning in.

If you are less than, um, um, want to tag me in your socials plays day, or if you want to chat through anything that you've heard in this episode today, you can always reach out by a DMS or emails. Um, and I look forward to catching up next time.