When someone offers you feedback or criticism, how does your body respond? Do you brace yourself for the sharp pain of hearing you’re not good enough? Or does your heart open up with appreciation, and your mind fire up with curiosity for the opportunity to learn?
“Setbacks and struggles are a natural part of how everyone learns,” explained Dr. Carol Dweck, one of the world’s leading researchers on motivation and mindsets, when we interviewed her recently. “When we reinterpret feedback and criticism not as a humiliating judgement of who we are or what we’re capable of achieving, but as an investment in our learning and success, it is more energizing and confidence building.”
Studies have found that a ‘growth mindset’ - the belief that our talents and abilities can be improved with effort and learning – helps trigger self-compassion making it easier to:
Take on new challenges: When we’re stretched outside our comfort zone, rather than fearing others will discover that we’re not good enough, we seize the opportunity to develop our skills.
Ask for help: When we need assistance from others, rather than struggling alone in shame, we seek and accept help to accelerate our growth.
Welcome feedback: When we receive negative feedback or criticism, rather than hearing it as a painful limitation of who we are, we value the gift of actionable insights to improve when we put our efforts.
Let go of the need to be in control: When we feel overwhelmed, rather than micro-managing others or doing everything ourselves, we start asking questions, providing feedback and working together to achieve the desired results.
Own our mistakes and failures: When things go wrong, rather than making excuses or blaming others, we willingly own and explore where we went awry to maximize our learning.
We took away so many a-ha insights and practical tools from our recent podcast with Carol, that we’ve recorded an after-party podcast for you to dive deeper into how you can use a growth mindset to build your self-compassion muscles. Just hit play to join us.
Please note: We are mindful that ‘girl’ and ‘woman’ are socially constructed ideas of gender that can fall painfully short of defining the fabulous complexity of who we each are. If these words resonate with part of how you have previously or currently identified yourself we’d love to hear about your lived experiences.
Do you see criticism as a gift?