Selfalot

Daily Quote: “The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.” Norman Vincent Peale

Many times in our lives we stand at a cross roads and we don’t know what to do. What would help us would be to find a person or coach and get some feedback to really maximise our life experiences. But we don’t ask or employ a coach. We think we can do this ourselves.

There are many times when we are faced with particularly difficult decisions and do not know what to do next that we could really do with listening to some good advice. All we need is to find somebody competent to ask.

Sure we ask our best friend whether we should get a divorce or go to counseling. What does she or he know about this? Often we ask the wrong person. This makes us ask less often because we have had a bad experience.

But it doesn’t occur to us that what we should be doing is asking an expert for feedback and advice. Go to a family counselor to get guidance on your relationship. What does your friend know? She only knows what has happened to her and how she felt. She can’t give feedback.

Yet we ask our friends more readily than going to get feedback from an expert. This is because we feel vulnerable when we ask. A friend we feel we can ask without losing face and looking like we don’t know how to handle our lives.

Going to an expert somehow makes us feel as if we are not competent. We need help. So we are obviously slipping up, not delivering, even being a failure. We would rather not ask for feedback than be at risk to be told that we are not good enough.

This means that in many cases in your life you end up struggling unnecessarily. You grapple with questions and problems without asking for feedback. Missing out on advice and guidance will stop you from developing yourself to the better person that you can be.

How do you know if you are a good manager? How do you know whether you are a good partner? How do you know whether you are doing your job well? You don’t unless you get feedback from the people involved.

Ask your staff for feedback to see how you rate as a manager. Discuss your relationship by being open to getting feedback. Participate in job assessments so that you can learn what needs to be improved upon.

Finding the courage to ask for feedback will provide you with invaluable information to enable you to improve on your relationships with the people you come into contact with. This can be people you live with or people you work with.

In all instances asking for feedback as to how you are delivering as a manager, partner, team or staff member will allow you to grow and develop better people skills and contribute to happier relationships in areas of your life.

Being afraid to ask will not help you in your quest towards developing more meaningful and happy relationships. Asking for feedback will not only help you to grow but will also help the person you have asked to provide you with information that will be of assistance to you.