Breathe

Another week has gone...an interesting week, filled with emotions, following recent performance reviews and bonus payments and the stress of setting goals for the next year.

Last night, when I was doing the final tweaks to my goals before submitting them on Workday with my recent performance review going through my head, I started thinking about the concept of feedback. Initially, I thought about work related feedback, but then moved on to feedback in general, whether it is from work colleagues, my mum, my friends or even strangers… how it is delivered, who it is offered by, how it is communicated, whether it is fair, whether it makes sense, how it makes me feel…

Some say, “Feedback is a gift”. That may be true, but as with most things, is it as simple as that?

Day-to-day, we all receive feedback regularly. At its best, feedback helps us understand our strengths, weaknesses and our impact on others. It sheds light on our blind spots and provides useful guidance for our growth and development.

But what happens when feedback is contradictory? It leaves us confused, defensive and unsure of what to do. I have found myself many times over the years, feeling overwhelmed, confused, angry, hurt and not sure how to react or what to say…

So, what to do when that happens?

The first step is to do nothing. Just pause and breathe.

Whatever the emotion is—confusion, anger, hurt— acknowledge the feeling and pause. And when calm, then start being curious about the apparent contradiction.

Get curious, not furious!

Sometimes conflicting feedback stems from differences among stakeholders – the same behaviour may be received and interpreted differently by various people.

Contradictory feedback may also signify “two sides of the same coin,” where a quality or behaviour that is a positive strength for one, is seen as a flaw by another.

Furthermore, contradictory feedback can signal that there is a variance in our behaviour with different people or in different circumstances.

Feedback can be messy, it is not a clear recipe, but as with all human input, it represents numerous viewpoints; it is like having a lot of voices echoing in our head, each giving different and sometimes opposing advice.

I think, though it may be hard, we should remember that though overwhelming, what first presented as contradictory, after taking a step back to breathe, helps us understand the nature of the feedback and should push us to flex our mindset to find the positivity in the contradiction itself.

So, yes feedback is a gift; but more notably, contradictory feedback can be a gift as well.

With that, I will leave you with a little poem that was written by a primary school teacher for her young audience, aimed to teach and in support of human emotions, which I find very fitting and always seem to remember when absorbing feedback, followed by moments of self-doubt.

Breathe by Becky Hemsley

She sat at the back and they said she was shy,
She led from the front and they hated her pride,
They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance,
They branded her loud, then were shocked by her silence,
When she shared no ambition they said it was sad,
So she told them her dreams and they said she was mad,
They told her they'd listen, then covered their ears,
And gave her a hug while they laughed at her fears,
And she listened to all of it thinking she should,

Be the girl they told her to be best as she could,
But one day she asked what was best for herself,
Instead of trying to please everyone else,
So she walked to the forest and stood with the trees,
She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves,

She spoke to the willow, the elm and the pine,
And she told them what she'd been told time after time,
She told them she felt she was never enough,
She was either too little or far far too much,

Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak,
Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek,
Then she found a small clearing surrounded by firs,
And she stopped...and she heard what the trees said to her,
And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave,
For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe.