How to Respond to Negative Feedback
5 steps to help you REACT to criticism with high EQ
Jenny X responded to your story.
Awesome, I thought as I scrolled through my notifications. I loved it when readers took the time to write comments on what I wrote.
Smiling, I popped the article open.
In 10 seconds, my smile stopped. I read the comment once, twice, three times.
It wasn’t a compliment or congratulations. It was a correction. It read like an accusation:
“I could do without the body shaming in your first paragraph.”
A quick flash of emotions lit up my brain: annoyance, anger, injustice, dismissal.
That’s ridiculous, I thought. I had written the piece to emphasize the opposite, that all bodies were acceptable. What the heck?
I settled into my morning tasks, but the comment still stung. It stayed with me all that day, and into the next. Truth be told, I still brooded over it 4 days later.
Why?
Why are negative responses so hard to take?
It turns out, we all have difficulty with negative feedback. We’ve all been hit over the head with a nasty comment, a blunt remark, or an outright verbal…
