Ep. 53: Five Ways to Avoid Taking Negative Feedback Personally

When you get negative feedback on your work, do you feel disappointed, hurt, and personally attacked?

What if there was a way to avoid taking harsh critiques of your work personally?

In today's episode, I'm going to give you five different ways to do this so you can keep moving forward without losing confidence in your work or your abilities. 

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com

Transcript

YWU Podcast Episode #53

5 Ways to Handle Negative Reviews Gracefully

Hey there, writers!

I hope you enjoyed the last episode with editor Laura Portwood-Stacer where we talked all about how to find the right publisher for your book.

It was just the first of many guest interviews to come on this podcast.

Also, I wanted to announce something very exciting today.

I am going to be offering a free giveaway to one of you podcast listeners to thank you for your support over the past two years. 

Your Words Unleashed is now ranked in the top 10% of all podcasts globally, which is so exciting and gratifying!

However, I usually don’t have direct contact with listeners unless they’re my coaching clients.

So, I’m sure you’re wondering, what is the giveaway and what’s the catch?

Well, basically it can be pretty difficult to get people to leave ratings and reviews for your podcast. 

I get it! I listen to tons of podcasts that I've never reviewed before because I just assume other people are going to do it.

The thing is that the more reviews a podcast has, the more likely new listeners are able to find it. 

So this is my offer. I am going to ask that you leave a rating and review for Your Words Unleashed on Apple podcasts. 

This would just entail you leaving hopefully a five-star review, but whatever you think is appropriate, and a couple lines about what you like about the podcast or how it’s helped you with your writing or your career.

You can do that by going to Your Words Unleashed on the Apple Podcasts app on your phone or your laptop (and yes, it has to be Apple). 

Once you’re on the podcast page, just scroll to the bottom and click the link that says “Write a Review.”

Then, email me a screenshot of your review at Leslie@yourwordsunleashed.com. 

Once I see it's posted, then you will be entered into a drawing to win one free private hour-long writing coaching session with me (which is currently valued at over $650). 

During this session, we can do anything you want. 

We can talk about time management issues or writing blocks that are keeping you from making progress on your work. 

We can talk about the structure of your book or problems you're having with a particular article. 

You can even send me a draft of a book chapter or your book proposal, and we can talk about to improve it. 

I have no idea how many people might do this, so I think your odds would actually could be pretty good (much better than your average drawing, anyway)!

I will close off the drawing on Friday, April 26th so you have a couple of weeks to do it. 

I’ll choose someone right afterwards and I will email the winner so we can set up our free coaching session!

The one caveat is that I want to connect with a listener I’ve never met before.

So, I’m going to limit the drawing to folks who aren’t coaching clients (although if you are a current or previous client, I would also be deeply grateful for a review!)

*****

Okay, so let’s move on to today’s topic, which I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time.

 I am going to be talking about how to avoid taking negative reviews personally.

And by that, I mean, how to not let them rob you of confidence in your project or in your own skills and abilities!

I definitely wish I had access to some tools like this when I was a junior scholar, because negative reviews always gutted me.

But let’s be honest, no matter how long you’ve been doing this, harsh critiques sting!

So I’m going to give you five constructive ways to deal with Reviewer #2 so that you can keep moving forward with your head held high.

You can find the full transcript of this episode at YourWordsUnleashed.com/53.

My Own Experiences of Receiving Negative Reviews

So let me start by telling you about my very first journal article submission experience in 2009.

I was a 6th year grad student who had no idea how to write an article, but I knew I needed to publish something if I wanted to get a job.

I put an article together from a conference paper based on dissertation fieldwork and submitted it to the journal Qualitative Sociology, which I thought would be a good fit.

After a few months of nervous nail biting, I received a major R&R from the journal.

I would have been really excited, except for the fact that the journal editor’s email basically read, “don’t panic!”

This is because my article had received 5 separate lengthy reviews which all hit on different things, ranging from broad thematic issues to the theoretical framework to small grammar points.

I have no idea how or why this happened, and I certainly don’t think this would happen today when people are overloaded and it’s getting so hard to find reviewers.

The editor was really kind and instructive, and he told me which comments to pay attention to and which ones I could essentially dismiss.

So that was great.

But there was one particular review that I just could not deal with on an emotional level.

Although anonymous, it was clearly written by a senior scholar who was one of the very few people to have published widely on the topic I was investigating.

I cited this person throughout the article, so that wasn’t the issue.

The problem was that this person wrote a 5-paged-single-spaced review that could only be described as deeply patronizing.

Reading it, I felt like I was being personally attacked.

I was too young and inexperienced to know that this person probably felt pretty threatened to see a junior scholar encroaching on their intellectual territory.

I also was incredibly lucky to have supportive and generous faculty mentors, so I was never exposed to this kind of egotistical, territorial behavior.

So I felt not only overwhelmed, but also scared because this person was very influential. 

I got really stuck for awhile and didn’t know what to do.

It was only after consulting with my mentors and allowing some time to pass that I could actually see that this senior scholar’s review, though very critical, also included highly useful suggestions for revision.

In fact, they were probably the most useful of all of the 5 reviews. And they actually helped me write my dissertation as well.

But it was my first introduction to the world of scathing, anonymous scholarly reviews. 

It’s likely you’ve had something like this happen to you as well.

It’s no wonder that people spend their entire careers trying to avoid them!

5 Ways to Handle Negative Reviews with Grace

So I want to offer five different ways you can approach negative reviews with grace so that you don’t take them personally.

#1: The first is to pause and resist the urge to throw your project away!

I know how it goes. 

Most people find it easier to believe negative things about themselves than positive ones.

Negative reviews can reinforce your greatest self-doubts and anxieties about your ideas and your intellect.

But especially if you are a first-generation scholar or come from a historically marginalized background, bitter critiques can hammer home feelings of inadequacy and lack of belonging in the academy.

And it can make you want to throw everything away and to start over!

Don’t do this.

Instead, read over your reviews once or twice and then put them away for at least a week. 

Your mind will start processing the information, and just as importantly, your body will as well.

So why am I talking about the body here?

It’s because when we perceive that we are being attacked, our nervous systems go into fight or flight mode.

Your heart rate and blood pressure go up, you might start sweating, your breathing gets really shallow.

All of these are signs that your body is deeply stressed and you need to calm down before you can face your reviews in a productive way.

This means you shouldn't respond to anything yet. 

Instead, take a step back, breathe, and allow time to absorb the feedback before making any decisions. 

#2: The second thing you need to do is to separate yourself from your work

As I talk about a lot, academia encourages people to conflate themselves with their work.

The issue is that if your work is your primary source of identity and self-worth, your whole sense of self tanks when your work is harshly critiqued.

When you get knocked down and you’re lacking confidence, you need to remind yourself that you are a three-dimensional person.

Your intellectual contributions are just one facet of the many ways you contribute to the world.

It may sound counterintuitive, but the more you can detach your personal identity from your professional output, the more likely you are to make a bigger impact on your field in the long run.

#3: My third suggestion is quite practical, and it is that if the reviews are really painful, you should have someone else read them and help you pull out the useful parts.

So this is a step beyond getting support from your peers and mentors.

Rather than just talking through your feelings, which of course is always useful in and of itself, I suggest that you ask one particular trusted confidante to wade through the specific comments and let you know their thoughts.

I often do this with my own clients who’ve been shaken by harsh critiques.

And because I’m usually not in their field of expertise, I just look for the most basic feedback about things like argument, flow, and research questions.

Just like with my first article review experience, the derisive tone of some reviews often exists alongside really useful constructive comments.

I’m not saying that all negative reviews do have helpful feedback, mind you. 

I know a lot of folks just critique without giving comments on how to make things better, and for the record, these people suck!

But I do think that if someone makes the effort to review your work, they are invested in the topic and will usually offer some ideas that can help improve the manuscript. 

So have your confidante read your reviews and help you skip over the nastiness to get to the constructive feedback. 

I also think that this can be super helpful when it comes to your teaching evaluations as well.

I, for one, was always impacted by the one or two negative evals I would get from students who just hated the class or disliked me for some reason.

And I would allow that to overshadow all of the positive, often glowing, comments I would get from students who were deeply engaged and appreciative.

After realizing that I got the exact same scores and comments pretty much every time, my solution was to stop reading my evals altogether.

But I don’t recommend that for you!

#4: My fourth point is that you need to acknowledge how subjective reviews actually are.

A lot of times people agree to do a review based only on a title and a short abstract.

They might be experts in your area, or they might just be really interested in knowing what’s happening in that area.

There’s also issues of generation. 

If the manuscript of a junior scholar goes out to someone only a couple years away from retirement, there could be a mismatch.

Or, let’s just accept the fact that people have their own biases and preferences when it comes to theory and method.

Negative reviews sometimes boil down to differences in opinion rather than objective flaws in your work. 

That’s why you need to discuss them with other people who do know and understand your project and what you’re trying to do.

Maybe the journal or the press just wasn’t the right fit.

Knowing this can help you take criticism less personally as well as be able to better recognize what you can incorporate to improve your work.

#5: My final suggestion for handling negative reviews gracefully is to embrace a growth mindset.

Whenever you put something out into the world to be evaluated, you are taking a risk. You could get hurt.

But if you can use even biting critiques as opportunities for learning and improvement rather than as some kind of objective reflection of your abilities or competence, then it was worth it.  

Of course, when your ideas are received harshly, it can be really tough to feel anything but hurt, offended, and disappointed.

However, don’t forget that even the meanest reviewer has taken time out of their busy schedule to read your work and comment on it for no compensation.

This is why it’s a good idea to send some gratitude to your reviewers for their time and effort and to acknowledge yourself for allowing others to engage with your ideas.

Approaching challenging feedback with a sense of curiosity and openness for how it can possibly strengthen your work makes critique a necessary stepping stone to your growth as a scholar and as a person.

Summing It All Up

So there you have it, my thoughts on how to avoid taking negative feedback personally.

Let’s sum up the five different ways:

1) First is to pause and resist the urge to throw your project away. Come back to it when your mind and body are calmer.

2) Second is to separate yourself, your identity, and your self-worth from your work.

3) Third is to enlist someone you trust to help you identify the most helpful, useable feedback.

4) Fourth, recognize how subjective reviews are and how biased reviewers can be. In other words, nothing is objective.

5) And fifth, embrace a growth mindset when it comes to receiving feedback.

Like I said before, when I was a junior scholar, I had literally no tools or strategies to help me handle negative reviews on an emotional level.

So I offer these to you in the hopes of making things a little bit easier.

Don’t forget that these tips are also applicable to teaching or things like tenure reviews.

Ultimately, you have the choice to NOT take negative feedback personally.

And just knowing that might make the whole process feel better.

I hope you’ve found this helpful, and I’m looking forward to seeing your reviews of this podcast!

Talk to you again soon.