Feedback strategies

Caption: Salem the Sassiest Cat always gives the best feedback obtained from icanhas.cheezburger.com

   As someone who thrives on feedback (my code for saying I am a total people pleaser to a fault), I enjoyed reading the articles over productive feedback. The first article I read was What Kinds of Messages Help Kids Grow? which discussed how using growth-mindset strategies for feedback/praise can benefit a child during the developmental stages of their lives. It touched on the words they use when providing feedback can alter how a kid responds to good feedback and how using the word "yet" will motivate them to keep working hard. This is something I am trying to implement in my life. For example, I was studying for French and I just wasn't getting it, but I kept telling myself "I'm not understanding it yet?" It keeps me a little more motivated to continue studying. 

   The other article I read was The Trouble with “Amazing”: Giving Praise that Matters. I really enjoyed this post. The reasons were sound and made sense, especially the second one. Amazing is unspecific. I really relate to her college friend asking "why am I pretty?" because that is something I totally do when people give me a vague compliment. I like specific compliments, so if I do receive one that feels sort of generic it usually makes me wonder:

 "Do they really think I'm amazing or are they just being polite?"

Receiving specific feedback like

 "Oh your shoes are amazing!" or "I really enjoyed your poster. The colors you chose were amazing." 

are more helpful and rewarding. 

Feedback Thoughts

   I really enjoy reading these Growth Mindset related articles. I love the encouragement and inspiration they give me. This week I read Seven Ways to Crush Self-Doubt in Creative Work and Make Good Art: Neil Gaiman’s Advice on the Creative Life. 

   Self-doubt is something I have always struggled with for as long as I can remember. I hold myself to such a high standard when it comes to creative and academic work. I tend to hold the belief that I can always improve and I can always do better, which has led me to a lot of self-doubts because I never few my work as ever being good enough. After reading the Seven Ways to Crush Self-Doubt, I found some of the tips to be a bit obvious, but some to be helpful. Tip number three was one that stuck out to me: 
   
   "Be vulnerable to a trusted community"

   This is something I have always struggled with because I am incredibly bent on "if it isn't good enough for me then I refuse to show it to anyone else." I am not a big fan of showing the process to the finish work. It's finished or no one will see it at all. However, this mindset I have developed is being challenged greatly this semester. I am currently in a Digital Design course where the professor is very progress based. He wants to see our sketches and to help us from beginning to end. I am learning to open up a little bit and realize it is not a bad thing to get developmental feedback, but overall I have been a little more anxious with every class. 

Caption: Created on cheezburger.com
   
   The Neil Gaiman commencement address is something that I have heard before many years ago, and it actually reminds me of my favorite quotes from Ira Glass:
  
   "Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years, you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work."

   What the two have in common to me is they both encourage just making stuff. That is the only way to get better it to continue writing, painting, creating and even if it's bad it's ok because you are doing something. Essentially, you have to create mistakes and learn from them.