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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?

#251

Post by JKCalhoun »

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.

Criticism made will ill intent can be disregarded. Shame on the critic.

(Easier to say than to embrace, of course.)

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

#253

Post by wubbalerfa »

In a way, it's easy (I'm being deliberately flippant here, I know it's not easy) - if continual learning and growth is one of your goals, the worst thing that could happen is never getting feedback. Getting feedback means you have information to process and improve.

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

#254

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

I guess it’s a few questions here:

1) is the person honestly just trying to help make the codebase better?

2) is the person wording it in such a way that doesn’t insult you?

3) what is your preferred way they would’ve made their comment, if any at all? Is it reasonable for you to have that preference?

4) what are your thoughts when you receive good faith, non-insulting criticism, and why do you have those thoughts? What is the underlying emotion you’re feeling that’s triggering that kind of thinking? What are the justifications you have under those feelings & are they reasonable ones?

Breaking down why you react the way you do, and all the aspects of that interaction, will help a lot in figuring out how to feel less defensive over it.

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

#255

Post by solatic »

You give yourself permission to make mistakes. Too many of us come from a background where making mistakes result in bad grades, being marked as a failure, being held back. But making mistakes is how you learn. When you're no longer getting a grade for how you did as an individual along the way, but rather are "graded" by how well your team delivers final results, then you appreciate that constructive criticism is entirely necessary for getting winning results. Ultimately, by being on winning teams, you promote your own growth.

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

#256

Post by incomingpain »

Everyone makes mistakes. The actual mistake is not fixing your mistake. Why take something personally when they are helping you?

The problem is that most people take criticism as if you punched them in the face. If you never criticize another person or thing ever again you'll be way ahead in life. Polite people will never help you, but here's the problem. Your enemies will also not help you. "Never Interrupt Your Enemy When He Is Making A Mistake"

So imagine the rather unique individual who will actually give you criticism. It's the most wonderful thing to experience.

"Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults." -Ben Franklin

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

#257

Post by matwood »

Dwolb wrote: post #249
_popcornLurker wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agreed. Another adjacent PoV is improvement, not complete, is the steady state. What I mean is, throughout our entire schooling career we did work and turned in assignments that got graded. They were done. The work was over. Our professions aren’t like that. There’s no done. There’s always improvement. Therefore every piece of criticism, critique, or feedback has some data in it (sometimes layered in poorly worded ph…

> Therefore every piece of criticism, critique, or feedback has some data in it

Extreme Ownership teaches a mind shift of looking at criticism and thinking of it as 'GOOD'. Criticism is an opportunity to improve.

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

#258

Post by incomingpain »

incomingpain wrote: post #256

Everyone makes mistakes. The actual mistake is not fixing your mistake. Why take something personally when they are helping you? The problem is that most people take criticism as if you punched them in the face. If you never criticize another person or thing ever again you'll be way ahead in life. Polite people will never help you, but here's the problem. Your enemies will also not help you. "Never Interrupt Your Ene…

Navajo teaching on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkQDL-bkBnQ
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