❄️Feedback that Stings like an Ice Bath: how to keep your confidence after harsh criticism.

TUNE IN TO LEARN:  

Have you ever felt like feedback was more of a personal attack than constructive criticism? And you literally felt like it physically hurt and you could barely get back to work, back to your day after? With your confidence levels down to the floor or below ground level?  

Join me, Angela Shurina, as I share a client's story when total loss of confidence from harsh feedback sparked a journey toward resilience, growth and optimism, AND higher motivation to get back to it, learn and get better.  

We'll explore strategies to rewire negative thought patterns that come from painful criticism, into constructive, optimistic and uplifting ones.   

Even the harshest feedback can be transformative when you frame it the right way.  

Tune in to get your vibes up, grow through challenges and smile into negative feedback, growing your confidence in your ability to improve and build your biggest vision for life and work.  

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brains Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brains Coach and it is my job here to bring to you motivation, enthusiasm, optimism, but also all the well-researched, cutting-edge, applicable, fun, very useful and life and business transforming brain-body tools so you could take better control of your emotions, of your thoughts and, most importantly, your actions. So you get to shape your life experience, your business, your vision in a way that inspires you, that makes you want to live more of your life and do cool stuff. So that's what we are all about here and today, guys. As you probably guessed, we're going to be talking about feedback and criticism, stuff that might not be physically painful but sometimes often it feels like it does actually cause you physical pain. Let me start with a story.

Speaker 1 1:14

I was on this coaching session with a client over Zoom and she was telling me her recent experience. And she was telling me her recent experience. I ran out of there crying. She shared she was going through a training session and the feedback from the person who was delivering the training was brutal. Supposedly to be constructive, but it felt more like a personal attack. Have you ever been through something like this. Guys she continues.

Speaker 1 1:48

It made me feel incapable. Now I second guess everything I do. I feel like everyone is watching me, waiting for me to mess up. A part of me doesn't even want to go back to work. How do I shake this off? And, guys, I don't know about you, but I can definitely relate to that a lot. The more I do, the more punches I get. You can even trace it Like the more I get out there and start doing more of my work, the more punches I get. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me I wasn't qualified, I wasn't going to make it, that I didn't have, what it takes, that I'm incapable, that I should be just going back to Russia or Siberia and just get a job, if I had a dollar for every time somebody told me I'd be maybe not a billionaire, but you know, getting to my millions a lot faster. People say that stuff. People who but let me just stop for a moment what I told my client Acknowledge it, because it sucks. It's always going to suck. It's painful. I've been there, you've been there and you'll get through it. But back to practicality of things, and this is the type of training guys and learning how to think better that serves you, serves your life, that moves you forward. Learning how to think better is like muscle it's literally forming a new thinking habit, just like you would form a new eating habit, a new exercise habit. It's a habit and the reason why you start thinking in a certain way. Like my client, it made me feel incapable. Now I second guess everything I do. Am I even good enough? Maybe I should just go back to what I was doing before. Right, what am I doing? Am I really going to ever be good for that?

Speaker 1 3:55

This is a line of thinking that for most people, is habitual. That's what we're used to. Our brain is more negative than it is not until you train it to be more positive. You literally have to train yourself, like you would train a habit, getting a new habit to think differently, to think more positive, to think more optimistically.

Speaker 1 4:21

Human brain is negatively biased and for a good. It kept us safe and alive when we had more negative bias and we thought, oh, maybe the weather is not going to be that good, maybe there are going to be predators. So I need to prepare, you know, I need to brace myself. I need to make sure that I'm safe, that I'm surviving. So that's why you have this negative bias. But you see, in our environment today, most of the stuff you're going through it's not going to kill you, it's not going to threaten your survival in any way. In fact, if you go out more, you'll create more opportunity. You'll get more opportunity to learn, to improve and you expand your life instead of increasing your chances for dying or not making it right.

Speaker 1 5:13

So we need to retrain our psychology. And just like an elephant can do all these crazy tricks in a circus, you can learn this stuff right. A cat like you go to a cat. You can go to any circus. What are animals trained to do is mind-boggling. People are not capable of doing that. So you can train yourself a different way of thinking that, just like any habit, will become automatic once you do enough reps. Just like if you've been going to the gym for, let's say, or you've been running for maybe months and years. Certain things become habitual and things that were difficult are no longer are difficult and they're your second nature and you do them without thinking, kind of like having the same food for breakfast After a while. It's just what you do, you don't have to think about that too much, so you can retrain your thinking.

Speaker 1 6:05

Let me start here. What is the thinking that would benefit you? A more positive thinking, a kind of thinking that makes you want to learn and grow and improve. And also, which is true because your brain, you know, know when you bullshit yourself. Also, which is true because your brain, you know, know when you bullshit yourself. So don't fake it till you make it, but start seeing a different perspective. And what is a different? A better perspective?

Speaker 1 6:27

Well, first of all, we all have our days. That trainer that my client experienced on that day giving this harsh feedback that felt more like an attack maybe they were having a bad day and, in fact, the continuation of the story, my client just sent me a message saying you know, remember I told you about this thing. Well, that woman actually came up to me today and apologized for being so harsh and she gave me additional pointers and explained why she was that harsh and that strict, and explained why she was that harsh and that strict. And then she tried to make amends and now they're sort of friends etc. And she said that she's going to help her to move things forward and get better at that specific skill right.

Speaker 1 7:13

We all have our moments. We are human. You probably say a lot of things that you later regret, and you have your not-so-good days when everyone feels like a jerk and you just want to give it all not your best self right. We all have these days. And the more we remind ourselves that we're all human and not always at our best and say stupid things, say harsh things, say things that might hurt someone, the more you realize this is a fact of human nature, the more you start not paying that much attention to what people say on any specific day.

Speaker 1 7:46

Now, if you get this feedback consistently like 10 people in a row tell you the same thing well, you might start looking at yourself. Is this any true to that right? So being more objective means collecting more data. If one person tells you something, that might not mean anything nothing at all. If 10 people tell you the same thing, that probably means something. So, from common humanity, we all can be jerks sometimes. It doesn't mean anything that we are bad people, or that you are a bad person or you will never improve.

Speaker 1 8:20

The second thing from here that we all can and might need to improve Like again, if one person gives you a piece of feedback that harsh, that feels like an attack, it's one thing. If 10 people give you the same feedback, there might be some truth to that and you might look back. You might look in the mirror and ask yourself where am I getting this wrong? Where am I doing this wrong? What might need some improvement if I need to get specific result or if I want to get different kind of feedback right, realizing that, yes, you might not actually be as good as you think you are, but guess what's empowering here? You can get better. Just like if you go to the gym every single day, you're going to get fitter. If you start working on your communication, you're going to become a better communicator. That's actually what happens when you see a great public speaker. They didn't land there by chance. They were not born great public speakers. They trained and trained and trained. And one day, voila, they become one of the best trained and one day, voila, they become one of the best, greatest, right.

Speaker 1 9:24

So realize this fact that we humans are always in the process of improving well, hopefully, getting better working on something, being not that great at something and being quite good at something else. And if somebody gives you feedback and they say, well, you know you might need to improve here. And they say, well, you know you might need to improve here, you know what you might need. Indeed, and there is nothing life and earth shattering about that. There is nothing new under the sun about a person needing to improve. And guess what? You are a human being who is the best organism on the planet capable of learning and improving.

Speaker 1 10:00

So if somebody points out to you objectively that this thing might need improvement, like your behavior or your skill, guess what you can pick up a book, you can get some training, you can get different learning opportunities and experiences and you can get better. And the more that you do, the more you put into your learning, the faster you're going to get better. And the more that you do, the more you put into your learning, the faster you're going to get better. And so, again, there is nothing earth shattering or fatal about that. You are not great at a lot of things and you can get better at almost anything. Right, that is the beauty of being a human being. You can direct your skill acquisition, your learning, your improving, and you will get better if you do it consistently so if somebody gives you feedback again, it might actually not hold any true, but if you get the same kind of feedback from people or from life, then there might be some truth to that and it's not earth-threatening or life-threatening or fatal. You can work on that and you can and will improve. So this is the second thing that I told my client Please do understand this that, yes, some training might point out to you that you are not as great as you thought you were, but take it as a challenge. You can get better and when you do, you're going to get greater results, greater opportunities and greater outcomes in your life, in your work, in your business, whatever it is you're working on right. And the third thing I told to my client I told her you know, this morning and that was on that day I took an ice bath and Every time I do ice bath, or really cold water bath, every time it hurts my feet, it stinks, it's not comfortable and you know what?

Speaker 1 11:55

It's never going to become comfortable as long as you are an alive human being with nervous system and pain receptors. The way we are set up, cold water, icy water, never going to get comfortable. The way we are set up. Cold water, icy water never going to get comfortable, but I do it because after it my mood gets amazingly better, my energy. So if I ever feel down or feel demotivated, I know that part of that is my dopamine getting low, from me working harder and not necessarily seeing a lot of results. So I need to bump it up physiologically. So I get into the ice bath, into cold water, and my dopamine levels and that's, by the way, confirmed by research go up. And when your dopamine levels go up, you get a boost of motivation, of optimism, of curiosity, of drive, of just wanting to get after it. And that's why I do ice bath.

Speaker 1 12:48

And so is the pain always going to be there. Yes, as long as you are human being, ice bath will always hurt you, like, no matter how many times you do it and I talk to people who do it like every day and they still get it. So you'll always feel the pain, just like you feel the pain psychological, or sometimes it literally feels like it's physical. You'll always feel the pain, just like you feel the pain psychologically. Sometimes it literally feels like it's physical. You'll always feel the pain from harsh feedback. You're never going to be this human being who likes hearing stuff about where they're not great. Right, you're bad at it. You're never going to feel great about that. We love feeling or hearing praise, not the hearing about the fact that we are not great and we need to improve that, or any negative, constructive feedback. Never going to feel good.

Speaker 1 13:39

But, just like with Ithpath, you'll soon start realizing oh, you know, maybe they're having a bad day. Oh well, this is the thing. Now I know what to work on to improve. And then you'll also learn that in a couple of days, in terms of ice bath, in just in a few moments, you're not going to feel it, but you are going to get all the positive effects from, let's say, boosted learning. You're like, ah, now I know what to improve and how to work on that. So the positive effects, you're going to get a lot more of them. Or maybe it's just, you know, somebody told you something harsh. It hurts. And just like ice bath, yeah, it hurts. And so what? In a couple of days, if you're good with your thinking process, training your thoughts and your emotions, you're going to forget about that. It's not going to change your life. And that is the last point I told to my client. You know it doesn't matter who tells you something, anything, how good or bad people think of you, it doesn't really matter.

Speaker 1 14:41

On an individual cases because, guess what, nobody has a say in your destiny. Individual cases, because guess what, nobody has a say in your destiny. It's not up to any particular individual establishment, it's not up to anyone to decide where you're going to end up with your life, your career, your skill acquisition, etc. Nobody has a say in how your life is going to end up. It's up to you how much effort you're going to put into it, how much you're going to grow and learn and improve and get focused and get clarity on where exactly you want to go. It's up to you, you and the universe like you and the universe, individual cases, individual people don't have a lot to say. You can work around that person. You can figure out a different way towards your goal, towards your dream career, your dream business, your dream relationship. Like one specific individual never has a say in how your destiny is going to go.

Speaker 1 15:39

And another point they don't know what you have inside of you. Even you don't know what you have inside of you, the potential that is in you. Even you don't know the edges of it. Even you don't know how far you can go. How would that person know? Do they have some sort of crystal ball and they see the future of you and every single human being and where it's all going to go?

Speaker 1 16:03

Think about that Ridiculous. Nobody knows where you're going to go in life. Nobody, not even you, let alone some other person who maybe met you once or twice in your life. And so when you realize that you're like, oh, you know, it's just one opinion and this person, I might not even see them ever. So why the F does it matter? And yes, nobody has a crystal ball into your destiny. Nobody knows where you're going to end up, how your future is going to go and even whether we're going to be alive as pieces at all in 10 years.

Speaker 1 16:40

So that you know, taking yourself out of the situation and looking at a bigger picture, you realize how ridiculous that is to be so much affected by that. You know the opinion of one single person on one specific day, at one specific moment. But again, is it going to always hurt? Yes, we humans are social creatures and social opinion especially expressed not in the nicest form, it's always going to hurt, but, just like with Ithbeth, you can learn how to take it lighter and not that pain and not allow this pain to feel like it's going to change your entire life and entire universe and how you're going to end up doing in life. You realize, huh, it hurts and these two shall pass. And if there is any truth in this criticism and you do need to get better, guess what You're a human being you can and you will if you decide to do so.

Speaker 1 17:48

And this line of thinking I have not always been this way. I developed it, I trained it. I've been in coaching for 15 years and things still hurt me, but now I know how to talk to myself and in fact, my brain goes there automatically for this not to affect me and for me, just keep going and learning from different kinds of feedback when I decide to do so and when it makes sense, and just keep taking Ithpass, keep boosting my levels of dopamine and motivation, getting stronger, learning, living my life fuller and, one step at a time, one action at a time, chipping away at things that I want to chip away from, to build the vision, build the dream, build the destiny that I want to experience in my life, remembering that nobody has, I say, a crystal ball into my future and if I decide to put efforts into something, it will grow, just like when you go to the gym. If you show up every day and you do something, you're going to freaking get better, even if you don't have a good enough strategy. So I hope this helps and you're going to use this podcast episode, save it somehow in your podcast player, maybe in your browser, download it, put it on your playlist in Spotify or whatever player you have, and listen to that Anytime. You need to remember this when you hear some feedback that feels more like an ice bath. You know the secret to keeping your face straight. When somebody gives you very cold, harsh and sometimes often feels like unfair criticism, the secret to keeping your face straight, and sometimes even smiling back, is just putting in the reps. The more ice bath you take, the more you can smile into the experience, not because you don't feel the pain, but because you know these two shall pass. Hope this helps.

Speaker 1 20:03

Don't forget to share this podcast episode with at least one other person who might need it. Going through difficult stuff, going through challenging stuff, or maybe they got some harsh criticism and you don't really know how to deal with that. Give them this podcast, send them a link, screenshot it and say just listen to this. I highly recommend this. While you're going through this stuff, I highly recommend this while you're going through this stuff. I might not be qualified, but just listen to this. Trust me, so share. And if you have any appreciation to express, please do rate, review our podcast episode wherever you get your podcast on. And until next time, take a nice bath. Let it sting you and remember the soul shall pass and nobody except you and the universe has a say in how your destiny unfolds. Talk to you soon, have an awesome day and take more ice bath.