You have issues!

‘You have issues, over and out’, that was what my friend and former colleague told me after we disagreed on a reply I made to post his friend had made on Twitter, such a blunt reply. Apparently since we were mutual friends we should not disagree.

Issues

This had me feeling weird and more specifically unimpressed since ‘issues’ is a general term and could literally mean anything for that matter and coming from someone I have known for a very long time it means a lot. This may be a prompt towards a long and weird back and forth via text with little or no valuable conclusion or may be channeled towards a productive goal. Point to note is that feedback from people who know you deeply both personally and professionally is the best type of feedback and should encouraged and sorted often.

The ability to take negative feedback is heavily influenced by feelings the recipient has and can be grouped into three main categories namely;

· Truth triggers- when assessments are off base, unhelpful and simply not true.

· Relationship triggers- tripped by the person given the feedback and

· Identity triggers- tripped when the feedback differs with what you believe about yourself

When faced with negative feedback we can out rightly dismiss the feedback as useless, unhelpful and baseless. However, when seeking for growth and emotional agility, the feedback can go a long way.

There are six recommended steps that one may follow to gain from negative criticism- identifying your tendencies when confronted with the feedback- the reactions you always have after receiving them, separate the what from whom to avoid the relationship triggers, sort towards coaching on how to build upon the feedback, unpacking the criticism to understand the details of feedback, asking for one thing to avoid information overload and conducting small experiments to test out the truth in the feedback.

We are constantly receiving feedback from the environment and the most crucial feedback is interpersonal feedback that’s why job application feedback may make or break a job seeker. This feedback grows you as a person as you become more self-aware, the more often we seek and digest this feedback the more holistic we become. I for instance will choose to deeply understand the issues I may have that led me to the reply on the post and may be next time not being sarcastic I may just like and retweet leaving it at that.

What tendencies do you have and how are you prompting for and learning from the interpersonal feedback you are receiving? I would love to hear them.