Who is still waiting for positive feedback?

The kind of positive feedback that makes us feel good. For a little while.

I hear clients of mine so often say, “I need positive feedback. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel motivated.”

But … does it really?

Feedback is something that we have so gotten used to starting with parents, teachers at school, bosses for performance reviews and promotions at work.
 
I also cannot deny that my brain gets excited when a client tells me that “I have helped them transform their lives”.

However, what impact does it have? Does it help me grow? Or am I outsourcing my own development?

Am I making my motivation and development dependent on other people’s opinions?

I agree with Carol Sanford on this: “Input from other people tends to trigger our need to belong, a response demanded by our brain for survival. This causes us to give external input more weight than our own reflections, which encourages us to work toward others' ideas and suggestions instead of our own.”

It potentially hinders leaders and teams taking responsibility, being radically honest, continuously learning and all the good stuff that businesses are looking for.

I am not saying that sharing your thoughts, emotions and wishes at work is not valuable. But it becomes a whole different game when done as self-reflection.

These are a few steps I am taking to take responsibility for my motivation and personal development - and I am using these with leaders and teams as well:

💡 Self-reflection – ranging from journaling to meditation to daily, weekly and monthly planning and reflections, to self-reflection in a team to improve understanding, connection and learning
💡 Acceptance – of different states of energy, emotions and situations and me not being perfect and always learning
💡Responsibility – taking responsibility for my own reality and being more aware of my own agency and how I can change my thoughts and behaviours and define my own development aims
💡Integrity – becoming ever more aware of what is important to me and acting in accordance with my values and my commitments – to myself and others

Who is still looking for positive feedback, I challenge you to be more conscious about how you work with self-reflection and feedback.

Self-reflection gives back the agency and responsibility to the individual.

Is that always easy? No. Is it a process? Yes. Is it worth it? Definitively yes.

There is no learning culture, growth and resilience without self-reflection.

Help your people develop them-selves.

#learningorganization #feedback #entrepreneurs