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

> We can think of a tree as a dynamic system in equilibrium with respect to the forces of gravity. Tree growth takes advantage of horizontal symmetry around a vertical axis as a way to distribute gravitational forces so that the downward force due to gravity on one side of the tree is balanced by the downward force of gravity on the other side of the tree. When the wind blows, the new force acting on the dynamic system of a tree responding to gravity temporarily shifts its current state, as mea-sured by the tree’s position in three-space, to a nonequilibrium configur-ation, and when the wind dies down the tree returns to its equilibrium configuration, just as models of linear systems with stable equilibrium points indicate how a dynamic system responds to a transient impulse. Let us imagine the tree as being represented by a vertical, straight line ..

2) Compare the submodalities of that to the submodalities of something you do take seriously.

3) Change the submodalities of the latter to those of the former. You will no longer take it seriously.

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What are submodalities? Qualities of modalities.

So what are modalities? Jargon for the subjective experience of the senses (visual subjective experience. auditory subjective experience...)

Our subjective experience has a structure, you can deliberately change the structure to change your subjective experience.

It's actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Take no offence if the company wants it done in a particular way as they’re paying for it.

I'm curious what tone your reviewers are taking?

It takes while to develop a good tone, as a reviewer, too.

Assuming your manager isn't doing the review, bring up some of the feedback with your manager. Tell your manager you're looking for technical help. Don't act insulted, but if the tone of the feedback is really off, it will show.

I think you actually are, in a very real sense. Someone else would have written different lines of codes. The lines of code are a function of yourself, an inherent part of you. Criticizing the lines of code criticizes that part of you. You can’t criticize a novel without implicitly criticizing its author. When we criticize an LLM’s output, we are typically criticizing the LLM. Perceiving criticism of one’s own work as something personal is only natural, and logical.

Now, if the criticism is of a honest mistake, you can learn from that, and own the mistake – show responsibility for it by acknowledging it and correcting it. Of course, that presupposes that you agree that it was a mistake.

Often things aren’t that clear-cut. There can be genuine differences of opinion and of judgement. Of course, one is biased towards one’s own work. It helps to be aware of that bias. It also helps to think in terms of picking your battles.

If you don’t quite agree with a criticism, it can also help to give yourself a chance to change your mind a bit. Maybe later you’ll actually mostly agree with it. And that later changed you isn’t the former you that was criticized. Win-win!