FEEDBACK:

One of the dreadful things to hear is feedbacks; because of the fear of failure and not being good enough, most of the time we dodge feedbacks. I know of a man who fear so much what people say to him and would avoid and escape when the time comes to evaluate his results. Obviously this man have not matured enough and hindered his growth as a person.

Feedback can either be good or bad to us; it is our means to evaluate our growth and effect to other people. Should we use it to our advantage we can capture our patterns and work to improve from there. It is also a great way to understand another individual and know their needs and their come from. It can be a tool to change our strategy and just a way to better handle the truth.

But is all feedback accurate and true for you? We also must be careful and consider the source. Not all feedback is useful for us. We should look into the situation and the psychological state of the person giving us the feedback. A person with psychological distortion who gives us feedback may not be speaking the truth. An angry-envious-drunk friend or colleague that tells us you’re a no-good f&@$ or tells us stop dreaming coz you’re hopeless is probably not a useful feedback. Now that’s something not accurate and not useful for us. However looking at the person’s psychological capacity is something that we should consider, obviously not a good source for feedback.

As a sales person, I’ve been successful in closing projects and accounts because I listen to my customers. Their feedback tells me what they need and what I can do for them. I listen to their complaints about my product and look at it as an opportunity for improvement. It may be tiring at times but bottomline we are both happy with the benefits that we get when things are getting better.

So what do we do when somebody tells us that we failed? Look at it as another opportunity to succeed and be better. But first acknowledge yourself for the effort that you’ve done. That it was the best you could do during that time. At that moment it was the most excellent work you’ve given considering your knowledge, awareness and skills. Be aware that you are still alive and that you have survived that setback. Look at the patterns of the people giving you the feedback. Find similarities from it, journal the learning or the lessons you’ve come across with and maybe title it as “what I’ve learned are….” And just be responsible with the results of that failure. Make sure that the necessary regrets or apologies are communicated to the people involved. Honest communication would ease out the situation especially when the failure is openly communicated.

However do not forget to go back to your successes. To keep your sanity and catch yourself from depression, make sure that you remind yourself of the successes in your life. This will remind you that it is okay to fail or have mistakes because you have proved to yourself that you are capable of success. And that you’ve done more things right than the wrong ones. Spend more time with people, who are positive and share the same vision as you. May it be your friends, family or colleagues that could compensate the Love and Affirmations that you need at this point in your life.

Lastly, go back to your vision, keep in mind the lessons learned, recommit to your goals and plans or better yet incorporate a new plan of action. End of the day, move forward to fulfill your dream. We will make a lot of mistakes but what is important is we learn from them and so the next time we may not do it again… and let us not be so hard on ourselves..