This article for goldfish:
- Feedback is the lifeline on your path to success. If you’re not embracing criticism, you’ll not grow as fast as you could be.
- Growth is not just about building things up, sometimes you’ll need to take a step back and reconsider the path you’ve taken in the past.
- On the journey to success, there is no room for the ego to tag along. Leave it at home, it will weigh you down.
This article for humans:
Feedback is essential on the road to success.
Whatever you define as success, often the path that leads to this point is not clear-cut. It’s almost as if you are walking towards a mountain top you can see from a distance, but it’s not clear what the best route is to get there. That’s OK, you haven’t been there before, so you can’t possibly know.
Taking a wrong turn can result in a loss of resources (e.g. time, energy, money). Therefore, it becomes incredibly important to listen to the people you meet along the way and readjust your path where needed.
The Lifeline To Success.
Listening with an open mind to constructive feedback alone is difficult enough. Let alone taking the criticism to heart.
It means admitting to yourself that you have not been taking the right path in the past. Good constructive feedback often breaks down a set belief. Even if it’s as small as believing you are doing a task in the most efficient way.
Admitting this belief needs to be readjusted, is admitting you wasted resources on the wrong things. Most people automatically will start to defend their beliefs in order to protect the ego.
Breaking down your belief system and reconstructing it, is something you do all the time when you’re still a kid. It’s relatively easy, because you didn’t invest much of your resources holding on to this belief. The older we get, the more invested we are and the more tempting it is to be protective of our beliefs instead, closing our ears to valid arguments that might break that believe down.
Breaking down your belief system hurts, even if it’s a relatively small part.
However, you’ll need to do this over and over again in order to grow. There is a common misconception that growth is just about building something up, but it is not. This is what growth looks like:
Build something up.
Break parts of it down.
Rebuild & Expand.
Break parts of it down.
Rebuild & Expand.
Etc.
On the journey to success, there is no room for the ego to tag along. Leave it at home, it will weigh you down.
Taking a step back to reconsider what path you have taken in the past is essential. It’s imperative to listen to feedback with an open mind, especially coming from the people who walked your path in the past, and are closer to that mountain top than you.
It is difficult to listen to feedback without interrupting the critic and trying to defend yourself. Yet it is necessary.
Remind yourself that people generally don’t give criticism because they’re mean – they want you to do better. Even if it’s for their own interest, realize that your interest is also at stake.
Embrace feedback. It’s your lifeline on the path to success.
Also read: ‘Fishing Coins Out Of Fire‘. This article gives a framework on how to deal with feedback delivered in an aggressive manner on the work floor.
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