After a harsh comment on my work, I was asked, "how do you keep moving forward?"
After 20 or so years as a professor, I've learned that feedback - positive & negative- is part of the business.
Academic feedback is mostly benign, sometimes vicious, & occasionally virtuous.
Local commenters are most often benign. Usually, they want to help you improve or keep you out of trouble.
Why? Because locals know few people move & academic memories are long, the best path is to be constructive.
No one wants to risk a running conflict with students or faculty.
Comments from further away can be a more mixed bag.
Some commenters are trolls - self-interested academic sociopaths. I know one senior scholar who undercuts young scholars' confidence as a means to stay on top of his niche. Trolls are exceptions & to be avoided.
Some commenters are role players - thinking giving harsh feedback is part of the job. They don't see the pain the comments cause. These are benign & part of life.
A rarer commenter is an angel - offering suggestions because they like helping or derive pleasure from mentoring. These are rare & to be sought out.
No matter the source or tone, every academic that I know struggles to digest feedback.
Perhaps, this struggle comes from imposter syndrome - and feedback evokes deep-seated fears about adequacy and self-worth.
Perhaps, this struggle comes from its accuracy - but being creatures of habit and tenure - we don't want to change?
I struggled with feedback for these reasons and more - until recently - and it caused me much pain.
In mid-life, I tired of responding out of fear, anger, or sense of duty - so in the past two years, I resolved to take feedback better.
So what steps did I take? To learn to take feedback?
First, I became attentive to The Who.
I learned to differentiate between trolls, role players, & angels.
I don't let trolls upset me as much these days. I recognize that I'm not their only target.
Second, I became attentive to the why.
Good or bad, comments have a reason. I ask why was it offered? What stimulated it?
I now take comments as suggestions to improve or offering insight into the other person.
This made me less defensive & open to change.
Third, I became attentive to the when.
I realized near synchronous text communication wasn't good for me.
I now wait to respond - using email or in person bc it lets thoughts mature.
I mostly dropped text messages from my work routine.
I have better, more measured. conversations.
Finally, I asked what.
What did it matter if someone didn't like my work? Or me?
I recognized most feedback esp. personal shots, doesn't matter.
What mattered was letting go of #emotion, understanding it's spirit, & making better decisions
These days I'm a lot happier, more apt to use #feedback to improve my #academiclife, and happier away from work too.
I hope you can find similar joy!
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