How to handle feedback

A poem, a story and 6 steps to building resilience

The poem…

The sadness of eating alone is that the thrill of cooking has gone. The sharing, connecting and integrating have followed the guests that left on the plate what I set.

No one to pass the salt or pepper. Now I must remember to buy them, refill them, 

Where did I put them?

I remember when oil’s sizzle first fizzled and boiling water stilled. Both pumpkin and aubergine wanted more to feed. Each loaf of bread too soon turned green. On several nights I threw out so many other serves of rice. 

The glass walls broke into whole bottles. Home delivery sang to me. Tempting me with personal meals and no need to share. I tried them all. I knew their numbers. Eight numbers followed by two. Every one.

The thrill of cooking has gone and soon after it went the joy of tasting.

What senseless thoughts lead me to this?

I must feed. I creep up on kitchen windows and peer in. I watch discipline slide each ingredient in. I listen in to temperatures changing structures. I smell the precise amounts and feel the rhythms stirring. I hear the spoons hammer the pot bells. 

I take it all. I pay no bill. I run away with the thrill.

~ Runaway thrill, by Matt Jackson, March 30 2015

The story…

Receiving feedback requires resilience. If I can’t take it I’ll stop creating. Even worse I might develop a chip on my shoulder so jagged and jaded that no one will go near me or my work. Left alone to listen to my own expressions of inner turmoil I don’t just lose my creativity I lose the ability to appreciate and encourage what others do. The result is an ever widening corrosion of creativity. I become destructive to my own creativity and to the creativity of others.

The 6 steps…

Here are some of the ways I build resilience to feedback.

Beware the instant gratification of “likes”

Social media presents a new feedback trap. In the past feedback took time and tact. A person had to deliver it to your face, over the phone or via written letter. It was a courageous conversation for both parties not a flippant act. Now there is a fast moving, shallow stream of feedback available with the tap of an icon. Like all convenient pleasures it is addictive and I can see the potential to become so dependant on it that it takes over my life. Without vigilance I could easily spend more time watching and worrying about likes and comments in social media than I do creating the content in the real world.

Pay attention to intrinsic feedback

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book, Flow, helped me understand feedback. Feedback is essential to fully enjoying any creative endeavour. What Flow helped me understand is the importance of the feedback that occurs between the individual and the activity. This intrinsic feedback gives me a sense of purpose. That I am doing what I was born to do. It could be the expression of “aha!” on the face of the front row audience immediately after I drop a truth bomb. The sublime smile line drawn on a character that makes the artist smile. The arrangement that reverberates the hairs on the arms of the musician. The smell of sautéed morning mushrooms breaking down in hot butter. This is the feedback that drives me to persevere on my own and to challenge myself to dive deeper into an activity. It is how I ultimately differentiate and define my self as an individual.

Seek external feedback

The shadow of my individuality is disconnection. This is why the feedback I receive from people I admire and respect as well as complete strangers who don’t know me at all is crucial. For without this extrinsic feedback a creative soul can lose the will and motivation to integrate and connect with people. Caught in an isolating loop of intrinsic feedback.

Have a self initiated project on the go

When my days are full of commissioned work any intrinsic feedback that I get during the creative process is, at the end of the day, at the mercy of the client. Which can create the illusion that extrinsic feedback trumps intrinsic feedback. This is not true. In fact I believe that it’s the opposite to the truth. The way to maintain the ideal ratio of intrinsic and extrinsic feedback is to have a personal project to spend time with no matter how much commercial work you have on. That way you can always have a pure source of intrinsic feedback driving you and your craft.

Look back on your work

I have a journal of poetry, a journal of hand lettering and a journal of business ideas. At least once every six months I look back over them. I cannot deny that I have come a long way. This encourages me to keep going. The exercise is between me and the journal. No one else. It is my past self proving to my present self that we are on track to reach the desired destination of my future self.

Listen to advice without obligation

I speak at least once a month at various conferences on creativity. These events last one or two days and are filled with people giving advice (like this article). Often I would feel stress after these events because I would learn so many things that I wasn’t doing and didn’t want to do. The result was a feeling that I was doing everything wrong. Then I realised that there is no one path that takes us all where we want to go. There are many paths. So I can choose to act on as much or as little as suits me. But I should listen to all of it. I have a phrase which I wrote for my own resilience. I’d like to share it with you dear reader. Please say it aloud now that we are at the end of this article of advice,

“Thank you for your advice. I am under no obligation to act on it, but I am wiser for listening to it”.

Thank you for reading. Please post feedback.

Matt Jackson

Article first published at https://medium.com/@affectorsmatt