We say we want "feedback". What we really want is to magically be "better" without learning, without feeling bad, and without anyone noticing our failures.

That second thing is hard. So we spend all of our time navigating gauntlets of "feedback" and getting fucked up for it.

Developing effective feedback is hard. Delivering feedback to someone effectively is hard. Being open to tough feedback is hard. Internalizing tough feedback in a way that changes your behaviors is hard.

This shit is hard.

I'm stuck on this idea of what it means to do better. Most of our behavior develops relatively unintentionally. Understanding how to intentionally change your behavior is a skill. Before you develop that skill, are you even ready for feedback?

I've worked hard on intentional behavior change. I'm still working on it. I'm at least able to recognize when I'm *not* likely to change certain behaviors. I try to be honest when I'm not yet convinced that my behaviors needs to change.

This is a critical skill. Especially at work. We often fall into rituals. If someone asks "are you open to feedback?", how often do you find yourself thinking "no, on this topic, at this moment, I don't think I am."

Being mindful of your own flexibility, or lack thereof, can help you communicate with people. Spend some time interrogating what it feels like to be "open to feedback" vs not. Can you tell the difference?

When was the last time you received critical feedback on places you needed to improve and thought "I'm glad they told me that. It's so helpful."

Anecdotally, I'm averaging about 50/50. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes the feedback is unhelpful. Sometimes I'm not ready to hear it.

When people hear feedback, they almost always want to talk about detail examples. That can be helpful.

But how often do you hear the example and immediately get distracted by "Do people dislike me? Do people think I'm bad at my job?"

We've talked about having emotional responses to tough feedback. That's okay. It should even be expected. But how often do you manage to write down the feedback so you can process more later?

I'm notoriously bad at writing things down. I lean on my memory a lot. But our memories fool us all the time. The messages we remember often get distorted by our biases in unhelpful ways.