Feedback that took a minute to hear but lasted a week
Why the glass gets heavier the longer you hold it.
It’s been a while since I wrote here, and it’s great to be back!
I’ve been developing the Interference Window, a simple way to see how our thoughts create stress and affect performance.
More on that soon, but first I want to shine a light on the role our minds plays in creating stories.
Consider this:
Your manager gave you some feedback recently. It was given professionally, and with positive intent, and most of it was positive. Yes, one part wasn’t, but the overwhelming message was that you did a good job. The trouble is that days later you’re still thinking about that one part.
Your mind added extra stories to it too, so now you’re worried that other people are thinking the same thing, and your job may not be safe. All the positive comments are a distant memory, all you can think about is that one negative piece of feedback.
If it had happened to a friend or family member, you know exactly what you’d be saying to them: “Ignore everything positive your manager had to say as they were probably lying, just take the one aspect that sounded a bit negative, and build as many stories as you can to make yourself feel as bad as possible”. Clearly (or at least hopefully) you wouldn’t say that. So why does your mind start adding all these thoughts?
The good news is that it’s not just you. Psychologists call it ‘negativity bias’, because our brains are wired to pay more attention to negative experiences than positive ones. It’s ironically a design feature that’s meant to help you, by noticing things that are a threat and then directing your body’s resources to it. The trouble is that in today’s world, most of us aren’t likely to be experiencing life or death situations, but our brains haven’t caught up with that, and still treat the situation like a predator.
You might be familiar with these sorts of stories “That comment means they don’t rate me”, “I’m not as good as I thought I was”, “ I better start looking for another job” “Why me?” . Or your stories might go in a different direction “I’m sick of being told off”, “They can stick their job if they don’t value me”. It’s not the feedback that’s the issue. It’s what your mind adds to it.
That’s where the interference comes from.
That’s what’s causing you far more stress than the situation itself.
Now contemplate this story. A child comes home from school after getting feedback from their teacher. “ I can’t stop thinking about what the teacher said. It was only one comment about my handwriting needs to be neater, but on the way home it made me so mad that now I feel sick.” The parent reassured their child that it would be ok, that they’d help them get better, and that the teacher was known for having very high expectations. Nothing made a difference, and at dinner time the child was still noticeably distressed. So the parent handed the child the glass of water from the table, and asked them to hold it out with a straight arm for as long as they could. After about 10 seconds the child started to wince, and soon their arm began to shudder. After a while, the child couldn’t hold it any longer and put it down on the table with a thud.
“What was the point of that?” the child replied frustratedly. The parent responded calmly, “the glass hasn’t changed, it weighed the same after 30 seconds as it did at the start, but for you it felt a hundred times heavier by the end, didn’t it? “Yeah I guess so”, the child conceded. “That glass of water is just like the feedback your teacher gave you today. The longer you hold onto it, the more pain it’s causing you. You can choose to put it down at any time, but there’s going to be a point when it feels too heavy.”
It’s the same with the feedback - the longer you hold onto your thoughts and stories about what the teacher said, the harder it’s going to be.
So next time this happens, see if you can notice these thoughts creeping in. Then ask yourself, are you responding to the feedback you received, or the stories that your mind has constructed around it? Just noticing this difference can reduce the grip that these thoughts have on you, and the power it has over your day. You don’t have to fix anything, or try and feel more positive, you just need to see it for what it is.
If this resonates, put down the glass of water and take a look at interferencewindow.com to see how thoughts are having an impact on you, and what can be done about it.