The two articles I read for this assignment were 5 Tips For Taking Feedback Like a Champ and Recalibrating the Perfectionist Mind, which were both very insightful, and really got me thinking about personal feedback and perfectionism. I would classify myself as a mild perfectionist, whenever I do something, I want it to be perfect. I made a lot of art in high school, and was never really satisfied with it, even when other people thought it was good. The second article I read talked about this, and how perfectionism can be used as a skill rather than a negative trait, by focusing on the positive aspects of what can happen and working towards that, rather than preemptively expecting a negative result even before you have completed an objective, like a test. I hope to be able to use this and other tips in this article to reduce the test anxiety I feel, which will undoubtedly turn into project anxiety when I enter the workforce.
I can acknowledge that I can be sensitive to negative feedback, even when I know it's coming. I can be defensive, or get down about the mistakes I made. I want to be able to avoid that in the future, because learning from your mistakes is honestly more beneficial than learning from success. That's why I read the first article on taking feedback well. I want to be able to receive feedback, even negative ones, in a positive light to be able to improve myself and my performance. Learning and growing is an extremely positive thing, and I am always striving towards that goal, so I will try to focus on finding positive intentions behind my deficiencies as the article suggests to allow myself to handle negative feedback better in the future.
Beating Problems, Stress, and Pain, Meme generated by me (Source: imgflip.com)
I've also struggled with test anxiety, and the article's tips really do help if you apply them in the right way. Taking feedback properly will get you really far in engineering, since managers look for improvement instead of just results. Engineering is very competitive, so the more you improve, the better off you are. Good luck on all of your improvements!
ReplyDeleteCallum,
ReplyDeleteDude I know about being a perfectionist with art. Once when I was in high school I burned a sketchbook because I was so frustrated with my skill level. Then like ten years later I look at old sketches from that time and I’m a shocked that they were actually pretty good. It goes to show, just like you can never trust a fart, you can never trust your brain when it comes to art. ;)
NICE MEME haha hopefully this can be a good environment for you. I’ve been terrified to leave comments (reverse fear of negative feedback) but once I finally started I’ve realized it’s not that bad!
Cheers,
Meredith