How to Accept Feedback Gracefully

Receiving compliments and criticism without getting defensive

It is challenging to hear about yourself from others and accept, or even apply that information without becoming defensive. Even when what the person is saying is positive, we can still have a hard time receiving it. When someone pays us a compliment, we look for a way to deflect it, and when someone offers criticism, we look for ways to deny it. We have this tendency to protect ourselves even when it’s unnecessary. 

The way some of us approach communication is similar to the way we approach playing a sport. There’s defense and offense, and we’re trying to figure out what the next play is, but it doesn’t need to be that way. We need to come to the understanding that not everyone who shares feedback with us is trying to harm us. They don’t all have an angle. 

Now, just because the feedback was not delivered with any malice, doesn’t mean we have to agree with it. When people share feedback, they do so from their perspective. They are speaking to their experience of us, so our own perception may be different, and that’s ok. Furthermore, it can be helpful to learn how other people experience us. 

This is not to say we should listen to everyone’s feedback. Take a look at the source.

• What do you know about this person? 

• Is there mutual love and respect inside of the relationship? 

• Do you trust them? 

If we have people in our lives that are constantly giving us negative feedback about ourselves or tearing us down, not only should we not take their feedback, but we should take a close look at why they are in our lives at all. 

In healthy relationships, when we are given feedback we can do the following to better receive it:

1. Sit with the information, and really listen to what is being said

2. Resist the urge to be defensive and overprotect yourself

3. Consider what is being said

4. Determine what you would like to do with the information

If someone tells us that we’re frazzled, we can decide that we don’t agree with their assessment. We can decide we love being frazzled. Or maybe we’ll decide we want to appear more at ease in the world, and choose to make a change. Ultimately, we get to decide what we want to do with what has been shared with us.

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Journal Prompt

• How do you react when someone pays you a compliment? How do you react when someone is critical of you?

A Few Things That Caught My Attention This Week

• The Liminal Space of Waiting, by Marlee Grace in her weekly newsletter, Monday Monday.

• Why These Therapists Want You to Look Within Before Breaking Up with Somebody, by Sarah Regan in Mind Body Green. 

• The Opposite of Schadenfreude Is Freudenfreude. Here’s How to Cultivate It: The joy we derive from others’ success comes with many benefits, by Juli Fraga in The New York Times. 

• WTF with the Five Love Languages on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast hosted by Glennon Doyle. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you stream podcasts.