Today, Molly talks about how to discern between good and bad feedback. She highlights the significance of believing and absorbing positive feedback and how it can impact our lives. Molly shares a personal experience of asking for feedback from close people and how it helped her discern between feedback that was truly about her and feedback that was about others' projection onto her. Molly encourages listeners to work on their ability to discern feedback and use it to grow and improve themselves. In just 8 minutes, you’ll walk away, finally knowing how to take a compliment! Enjoy!
Today, Molly talks about how to discern between good and bad feedback. She highlights the significance of believing and absorbing positive feedback and how it can impact our lives. Molly shares a personal experience of asking for feedback from close people and how it helped her discern between feedback that was truly about her and feedback that was about others' projection onto her. Molly encourages listeners to work on their ability to discern feedback and use it to grow and improve themselves. In just 8 minutes, you’ll walk away, finally knowing how to take a compliment! Enjoy!
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Feedback workshop by To Be Magnetic which can you find HERE
Do you have trouble receiving compliments? Like I do. Is it easier for you to believe the negative feedback than it is the positive? How do we know what feedback is? Good and right. And what feedback is bullshit. If you're shaking your head. Yes. Right now you are not alone. And I'm about to spend the next eight minutes or so helping you sort through the BS. . because imagine what you might do, if you believed and absorbed 📍 all the good things that people said about you.
Welcome to Molly at this age. And itty-bitty version of, I am this age, the podcast proving it's never too late and you're never too old. So go do that thing. You're always talking about. I'm Molly Sider, a certified professional life coach, speaker storyteller, and the creator and producer of insightful videos.
It's more than just your 📍 legacy. So I've been thinking a lot about feedback lately. In fact, I recently did an exercise where I asked three people close to me to give me feedback on how I'm showing up in the world. All the ways I might be self-sabotaging or ways I come off as annoying or rude, literally anything. And yes, this was scary and maybe a bit masochistic, but one of the big things I learned was my ability to discern between what feedback was truly about me versus what feedback. I was them projecting their own stuff onto me. And no, this isn't just me not wanting to face certain feedback because what would be the point of this entire exercise? If I was just going to dismiss helpful information. On the contrary, it was very obvious, which was which. And on a side note, the stuff about me was hard to hear, but I heard it.
, but back to the discernment,
there was a time in my life when I would have believed all the feedback to be about me and to be my problem to fix. There was a time in my life when this information would have gutted me. It would have left me curled up in a ball on my couch for days, and then wandering the streets, searching for ways to escape my own body.
But instead I read through and I thought. That's definitely about me. That hurts, but it's about me and the rest. Well, told me more about them. And so I started thinking. If I'm able to do that with this feedback, why couldn't I do that with all the feedback I've ever received? And so I started to go back in time and look at all the negative feedback.
You know, the stuff that like really stuck with me, that's created roadblocks and kept me from doing the things that I love or showing up as my, for lack of a better term, most authentic self.
For a long, long time I've suffered from a severe lack of self-confidence. I didn't believe I was capable of much at all. And that kept me from pursuing certain kinds of relationships and from achieving a high salary, despite having a high position in my field and company. In other words, I never asked for a raise they never gave me one. But here's the strange part. I easily and often felt like the biggest loser in the world. And then just as easily could walk into a room full of people and think to myself, I'm the coolest person here. So why was that?
Like, how could that even be and what do I do with this dynamic?.
When I was little, I was really into performing. I was a dancer and I took singing and acting classes regularly. I have memories of performing dance routines in my bathing suit for my parents and their friends in our living room. And what confidence, all of that stuff took. I can remember when I was very young, believing that I was capable of something special. That I had talent.
I didn't necessarily see. And everyone else. I felt different. I felt like a leader. And yes, that feels really uncomfortable to say out loud, but it is the truth.
And then I started to receive feedback as we all do as we go through life. So imagine that there are two bubbles, one bubble is my confidence and the other bubble is the feedback that I received from others. My feedback often sounded something like you're not smart enough. You're too chubby.
You're not pretty enough. You ask too many questions. You're too emotional. You're weird. Why can't you just fall in line? And as a highly sensitive person slash empath and hearing those things often from people I trusted to keep me safe. I believed them. And as I received this feedback, that bubble grew while my confidence bubble shrunk so small that I almost forgot it existed. Now I have mostly lived my life slightly outside of the box of norms. I've often tried to push myself in ways. I haven't always seen models. I've sometimes paved my own paths, whether they've worked out or not.
And so even while I've struggled with confidence, All of those things. I just mentioned require a lot of it. So, what I realized was that the confidence bubble still existed somewhere in my subconscious. And it was the thing that's been pushing me to try new ideas and not settle for other people's expectations.
Despite my lack of self-belief. Now if you're paying attention. You're probably beginning to see how this dynamic is confusing because it's conflicting. But it's about to get much clearer. I've struggled with the idea that I am delusional in the belief that I could successfully achieve any of the things I've dreamt of. But I've always thought a little ahead of the curve. If something doesn't make sense to me or doesn't seem logical or efficient, I can't get behind it. I've always been a questioner and that's affected everything from the way I think the fashion I wear the trips, I take the relationships I get involved with. And what I've chosen to do with my life.
When I started to recognize the difference between others projected feedback and what is actually true for me. My mindset changed. I realized that those people who told me I couldn't do something did so because they didn't think they could do it or they didn't understand it, or they've never seen it done.
So they believed it wasn't possible.
When I began to sort through the feedback that was actually about me versus what was really about them. All of the insecurities and fears that were projected onto me, all the ways in which my creativity and curiosity were being misunderstood. And question out of their fear, not mine. I began to realize that I'm not delusional.
I'm just a little ahead of the curve. I am in fact, A leader.
, so dear listeners, here's the important part for you?. If you've listened to this podcast before, you know, I'm always talking about identity, not as our successes, failures, hobbies, or relationship statuses. So know who you are without those things know what drives you, why you choose what you choose and what separates you from them. Because when you do that work, sorting through the feedback becomes a breeze. Also know, this. You get to choose what to believe you get to pick. And yes, Julia Robertson pretty woman was right when she said that the bad stuff is easier to believe. While it might be easier in the moment.
It isn't much harder in the long run. So do the harder thing now choose to believe in the good. See what changes for you. Look at what you're capable of doing when you 📍 decide to believe the positive feedback. Need more help with this. Want to dive deeper, click the link in the show notes to work with me, want to know more about insightful videos? There's a link for that too.
If you love this episode or any of the episodes, please send it to one or two other people who you think will also benefit. The more we grow, the more we can help you grow. Thank you too. Dan Davin for my music, David Harper, for the artwork. 📍 I am. This age is produced by jellyfish industries. I'm your host Molly cider until next time, stay curious.