In the last Working Well blog, I looked at giving and what we can do as a business to give a little back to our local communities.

This blog takes a more personal turn and looks at ourselves with the theme of receiving.

How good are you at receiving compliments, feedback or criticism? We need to make sure that we deal with these interactions in a way that helps us to be the best version of ourselves.

Receiving compliments

We all want to receive compliments, but when we do we often don’t know how to handle them and end up deflecting. For example, when someone compliments you on say, your shoes, instead of just saying thank you, do you feel compelled to add “oh, these old things?” or “I got them in the sale - they were a bargain”. It’s like we have to justify why we have something that another human likes!

By not adding these justifications on the end of a thank you, you’ll start to feel more confident in yourself.

Challenge: When someone compliments you… just say thank you – no excuses!

Receiving Feedback

Receiving feedback, especially in a work situation can be daunting. You want to know what your customers, manager or employees think, but how do you deal with the feedback? Do you focus on the negatives and forget the positives. If you do, don’t worry – it’s human nature to do this. But we need to retrain ourselves to be able to look at the positives and build on these.

Challenge: When you receive feedback, first look at the positives and how you can but on these.

Receiving Criticism

It is so hard to receive criticism; we don’t want to hear that our work hasn’t met expectations. This is easier if the criticism is constructive as that means that you can learn and improve on it next time. It’s probably an oldie, but I only heard it this year… FAIL stands for First Attempt In Learning. We need to reframe criticism and take the learning points from it.

Challenge: When receiving constructive criticism, write down the lessons you have learned from the experience and what you will do differently next time. By writing them down you will help to cement your learning.

Creating a positive learning environment

As 2020 draws to a close, there are many learning points for us all from this year, most of us having to deal with situations that no one around us has had to deal with before either. So, let’s be kind in giving and receiving compliments and feedback and make sure that any criticisms are constructive so that we can all learn and improve.