Latest / Mental Per4mance Daily with Adam Rutz / Feedback Is Not An Attack
Transcript
- Adam Rutz: One of the fastest ways to stop growing is to start treating every piece of feedback like it's a personal attack on you. And I think this is something that holds a lot of people back from reaching their actual full potential. Imagine a baseball player who's struggling at the plate. This hitting coach pulls him aside and says, Hey man, you're opening your front shoulder too early. It's causing you to pull off the ball. Now that player has two choices. He can get defensive, start making excuses. Blame the pitcher or convince himself that his coach doesn't know what he's talking about. Or he can listen, evaluate the feedback, and get to work with making an adjustment. Same player, same ability, two completely different approaches to improvement. And life works the same exact way. Maybe your boss points something out to you that you could improve on at work. Maybe your spouse tells you that you haven't been as present lately. Or maybe somebody you respect challenges the way you've been approaching something. What's your immediate reaction? Do you listen with the intention of learning? Or do you listen with the intention of defending yourself? Because here's what we have to understand about feedback. Feedback is information. It's not a judgment of your worth as a person. And no, that doesn't mean every piece of feedback you receive is going to be correct. But if you immediately reject everything that makes you uncomfortable, you're going to miss opportunities to actually grow. The most coachable people aren't necessarily the most talented. They're the ones who are willing to recognize that they don't have everything figured out. And that's a huge advantage. So today, I want you to practice something. The next time somebody gives you constructive feedback, resist the urge to immediately explain yourself. Instead, listen, ask a question, and identify one thing that you can actually use to get better. Because If your goal is to become the best version of yourself, you've got to be more committed to improvement than you are to protecting your actual ego. Your ego wants to prove you're right. Your commitment to excellence should make you want to get better. Don't let the need to defend yourself become the reason you stop developing yourself. Mindset, process, discipline, execution that's mental performance daily.