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Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#161

Post by goodpoint »

pestaa wrote: post #112
dusted wrote: post #95

At some point, I realized that there's a disconnect between "me" and "my work". My work is a result of circumstance, like, what my mood was when I did it, how well I know the particular domain, if I've seen solutions to similar problems before, what tools were available and understandable to me at the time. In other words, the quality of my work depends much more on what the particular task was, than on some inherent…

Do you have a hard rule against saying sorry? I apologize not for the mistake in my work, but for wasting other people's time and mental bandwidth.

This is correct. Apologies are meant for the person receiving them.

"Sorry you have the wrong number" does not mean it's your fault for receiving a phone call.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#162

Post by ilyt »

Stop acting with ego in real life and it will just naturally trickle down to code.

Just because you made it doesn't mean it is great, applies to code, things and kids equally.

And vice versa just because someone didn't like it doesn't mean it is bad or have problems. But if most people did, well, maybe it does.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#163

Post by teekert »

Phase 1: Unaware, unable

Phase 2: Aware, unable

Phase 3: Aware, able

Phase 4: Unaware, able

Congrats, you're at phase 2!

I for one have developed the ability to suppress my initial annoyance simply because other people code has just taken me by surprise so many times. Just ask them to explain why it is better, for me there was almost always something insightful. Idk, maybe I was lucky but a correction from someone has really become an opportunity to learn for me. Of course there are exceptions, and then I do discuss/defend and sometime force my way. But not often.

Also: Over time "Everybody makes mistakes" moves from being "some expression" to absolute reality, by experience. So no reason to feel bad. You may just need time. And as said, going from phase 1 to 2 is already progress, suppressing your annoyance for long enough may just land you in Phase 3 automagically.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#164

Post by molly0 »

kukkeliskuu wrote: post #148

What you have encountered is actually one of the necessary steps to really become "a senior developer". And congratulations, you have already passed the biggest part of that hurdle: becoming aware of the issue. There are things that are fragile, things that break when they encounter a shock. Such as porcelain, when transported. There are things that are non-fragile, things that do not break when they encounter a simi…

Thank you, it sound to me like meditation could be a way of developing an anti-fragile attitude?

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#165

Post by ilyt »

sverhagen wrote: post #145
dusted wrote: post #95

At some point, I realized that there's a disconnect between "me" and "my work". My work is a result of circumstance, like, what my mood was when I did it, how well I know the particular domain, if I've seen solutions to similar problems before, what tools were available and understandable to me at the time. In other words, the quality of my work depends much more on what the particular task was, than on some inherent…

It's easy to disconnect the work from yourself if there are circumstances outside of yourself, like an unrealistic deadline. But your mood or level of experience (examples you gave) seem exactly the sort of thing that someone could use to blame themselves...

Or it being personal pet project, whether privately or at work

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#166

Post by ilyt »

jodoherty wrote: post #136

In art school, we spent a lot of time learning how to give and receive critiques, because the fastest way to improve was to try frequently and critique often. You learn very early to divorce your ego and sense of self from your artworks and embrace every attempt as an opportunity to improve towards an ideal you can never reach. You also learn how to give meaningful criticism without being an asshole. Writing code is…

> Unfortunately, most software engineers haven't been to art school and have no formal training in how to give and receive useful feedback.

I'd imagine no training in normal education is the problem here, not not being to art school...

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#167

Post by mclightning »

It starts by not taking the work itself personally. Then any criticism of it is not personal either. You are not the result of your craft. You are the craftsman doing your best in a given environment, under certain conditions, in a given scenario.

Life is complicated. You are not omnipotent. These are very basic absolute truths.

You need to actively recognise this, and make it a part of your core mentality, and mentality drives the sentiment. Sentiments drive emotions. Emotions control how you react.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#168

Post by ethanbond »

molly0 wrote: post #164
kukkeliskuu wrote: post #148

What you have encountered is actually one of the necessary steps to really become "a senior developer". And congratulations, you have already passed the biggest part of that hurdle: becoming aware of the issue. There are things that are fragile, things that break when they encounter a shock. Such as porcelain, when transported. There are things that are non-fragile, things that do not break when they encounter a simi…

Thank you, it sound to me like meditation could be a way of developing an anti-fragile attitude?

Strong yes^ I can point to several instances where my meditation practice helped me to slow down enough to respond to a situation constructively rather than react to it destructively.

I’ll also add that journaling is an absolute game changer in terms of actually debugging/thinking through problems.

Meditation = “give this a minute or day to simmer”

Journaling = “now that I’ve cooled down, what are my actual thoughts on this matter”

I’ve been astounded on dozens of occasions to learn what my own thoughts really are, for the first time, by seeing them on paper. I.e. it subjectively feels like I don’t think the thought then write it, but instead I write it, read it, then think it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#170

Post by mjg59 »

Let me preface this by saying that I've had some fairly high profile criticism of patches I've been involved with: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/linus...

Having people criticise your work fucking sucks. There's no way around that. Someone you respect says you did a bad job? Yes, you'll take it personally. I don't think there's any way to avoid that initial feeling. Have I read patch feedback and wished I could sink into the Earth? Yes. Do I still have intrusive thoughts about a patch I sent almost 20 years ago that was eviscerated by the subsystem maintainer? Oh heavens yes. These are entirely human reactions. It's not a flaw to feel that way.

As others have said, being able to interpret feedback as well meaning can help. But you should also try to find external feedback on whether the criticism you're getting is positive, or whether you're potentially in a situation where you're being exposed to abuse. Sometimes feelings are an overreaction - sometimes they're justified.

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