Constructive Feedback > Positive Feedback

Positive feedback is nice, but constructive feedback is powerful.

What do I mean by positive and constructive feedback? Positive feedback is when someone tells you you’re doing great at something. It’s complimentary and makes you feel good. Constructive feedback is when someone identifies areas where you can improve, bonus points if they include suggestions on how to improve. This kind of feedback may not feel as great, but this is the type of feedback that helps you grow and improve.

We all like receiving positive feedback. It’s great to hear about what we’re good at and it can help us identify strengths we hadn’t realized we possessed. But it doesn’t really help us get better.

Constructive feedback may be harder to hear, but this is how we will grow and improve.

If you get nervous at the word “feedback” or feel inadequate when you get feedback pointing out your weaknesses, let’s take a step back and do a quick mindset shift. Feedback is not a bad thing. It’s an amazing opportunity! We are often our harshest critics, and this can lead us to focusing on improving in the wrong areas or in ineffective ways. Hearing constructive feedback from someone else, while it may not feel the greatest at the time, can help us get out of our heads and focus on improving in our most impactful areas.

Don’t look at constructive feedback as a personal criticism, if someone is taking the time to point out areas of improvement and suggest ways to improve, they are often doing it out of love not cruelty. We all want to be the best versions of ourselves, and we want to help the people we care about be the best versions of themselves. We help each other accomplish this through feedback. If you only told your sibling or friend nice things and never mentioned it to them when you thought they were making a bad decision, you wouldn’t be a very good sibling or friend. Feedback is the same thing. It’s not meant to harm you or upset you. It’s meant to help you grow and improve.

Now, that you understand that feedback tends to come from a place of love and care, let’s get back on topic.

Constructive feedback is essential to our growth. Sometimes, you just don’t know what you don’t know and that’s ok. It’s hard to work on improving something when you don’t know what it is. Constructive feedback from peers, mentors, and supervisors helps with this. A lot of times, people with more experience than us are much better placed to recognize areas where we can improve. This is amazing! It’s like harnessing the power of a time machine where you can go back in time to help yourself out without needing a time machine! Take advantage of the experience of others. Ask for feedback often and utilize it to get better.

Embrace feedback, this is your magical potion for improving quickly and efficiently.