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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?

#201

Post by kryptt »

'taking it personally' would mean it affects your own self-perception or sense of worth.

The simplest remedy is discovering your self-worth notwithstanding the comment. Remember your intrinsic value and the accumulated value you've already brought to bear.

Your ability to bring all criticism back into this context lets you treat it from a more detached (clinical) position. Judge the merit of the opinion, plan out any potential improvement or remedy, and frame your response accordingly...

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

#202

Post by switchbak »

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.

I'd only apologize for something that I should have known given the information I had at the time.

Most mistakes are only mistakes in retrospect, but at the time seemed like good or at least reasonable ideas. I don't apologize if I've done my due diligence at the time.

And I'm Canadian, saying sorry is like our favourite pastime :)

That said, sometimes I'll convey that I wished I had seen things better in the past, and sometimes that comes out like an apology (eg:sorry folks, I wish I had known this tech was totally unsuitable here).

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

#203

Post by iamacyborg »

dom96 wrote: post #190
latexr wrote: post #5

Kudos on the realisation and desire to improve. There are a couple of tricks you can use, especially when it’s asynchronous textual communication: Assume positive intentions from the other person. Imagine them as having written with a genuine smile on their faces. Don’t think of it as them versus you, but you and them together against the problem. That defaults ambiguity to the more pleasant side and allows you to re…

> Assume positive intentions from the other person. This works well in professional settings, but falls apart in certain online communities. How do you deal with people that don't have positive intentions, but actually have the precise opposite intentions, i.e. they want to attribute any perceived problem with your work as it meaning you are a bad programmer. Not taking that personally is far tougher.

Short answer, you don’t.

If folks are not providing constructive feedback there’s no reason to pay any attention to what they’re saying.

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

#204

Post by ctur »

In addition to the great advice in this thread, it’s worth being aware of something called “Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria” (RDD). It isn’t a diagnosable condition according to the DSM-V but is often observed coincident with ADHD. Basically many forms of criticism or even observation can trigger a deep and intense fight-or-flight response due to challenges regulating emotions.

Therapy and medication can help. If you think this might be in play it is worth talking to a mental health professional.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24099-rejecti...

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

#206

Post by Fgehono »

Perhaps it helps you to see a PR for what it can be instead:

As the point we're you are allowed to get good feedback.

Next time press the button for opening a PR and think 'ha I'm curious what I learn today!'

Don't open a PR and assume you will be merging it soon, open it to be able to work on your fine-tune process

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

#207

Post by _popcornLurker »

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…

Uhm...I have to chime in here.

"Anti-fragile attitude" when it comes to criticism is not built by tolerance. Quite the opposite actually. It is a common misconception. While making yourself numb against criticism IS a solution but not by far the best one.

A high criticism tolerance is learned by understanding that ones self worth is not attached to output or delivery. (This is hard in our industry) It comes from self-acceptance and compassion. And these values are learned early on. You'll find that the people that break down at the slightest criticism the most are those that were criticised the most as children as well. Those that had no room for being anything other than perfect. Where value was obtained from performance.

To take it even further...why see it as criticism at all? You are not your lines of code.

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

#208

Post by hermannj314 »

Software is a pretty toxic discipline where everyone is constantly ranking other humans - best school, annual salary, funding round, ARR, leet code. No matter what you do someone will find a way to make you feel small because you aren't ranked good enough on some other metric.

You don't have to participate in those systems. There are places where humans are treated with dignity, not made to feel small and worthless if they aren't at the forefront of every metric, or have all the answers.

Compare yourself to yourself.

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

#209

Post by greenthrow »

Separate your sense of identity and self worth from your work. Find those things outside of work, and criticisms and failings won't feel so personal. Also remember literally everyone makes mistakes and gets things wrong. The thing not everyone does is handle those instances well.

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

#210

Post by pjc50 »

endorphine wrote: post #188
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…

This assumes all criticism is made with good intentions. However that is not always the case.

But that's not under your control. Whereas your reaction to the criticism is under your control.
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