Are you a highly sensitive person (HSP) who dreads negative feedback? Between 15%-20% of the population has this personality trait, so we're in good company. Many HSPs struggle with negative feedback because it feels like a personal attack.
In this post, I'm talking about the challenges HSPs face when receiving feedback and sharing practical strategies to help you navigate these situations with grace and resilience. I'm also sharing ways to provide feedback as an employer, boss, friend, partner, or family member, that can help the super-sensitive people in your life receive and benefit from the opinions and suggestions you share.
Receiving Negative Feedback As a Highly Sensitive Person
Highly sensitive people are deeply empathetic and often absorb the emotions of others. This heightened sensitivity can make negative feedback harder to accept and process. When faced with criticism, even constructive criticism, HSPs feel bigger and more intense emotions including:
Overwhelm: Bombarded by emotions and thoughts
Self-Doubt: Questioning what they did, who they are, and how they feel
Defensiveness: Protecting themselves from perceived attacks
Shame or guilt: Making anything other than positive feedback mean failure
While one person can walk away from a performance review or a conflict feeling angry or annoyed, a highly sensitive person might be so emotionally tied up that they spend hours or days going over what was said, how it was said, what they think they should've, would've, or could've done or responded differently.
Building Resilience: Strategies for HSPs
No one wants to wallow in a negative review or unsolicited opinion, so it's critical for people who are highly sensitive to learn how to build resilience so they can let go of how they feel and move on. Building resilience is just feeling your feelings and learning to trust yourself and move forward. This is a process we start learning as toddlers when our habits and thoughts aren't fully formed, but learning to become resilient can happen at any age. Coaching is an excellent way to build resilience because it focuses on systems and habits, along with support and accountability.
Coaching can help you:
Understand Your Sensitivity: Instead of trying to stop being so sensitive, understand what makes you feel deeply,and accept that you're sensitive and that it can be a benefit in many situations.
Challenging Negative Thoughts: When faced with criticism or negative feedback, coaching can help you use the feelings inside your body to show you when it's time to pause and zoom out. You'll learn to challenge your negative thoughts and self-doubt with curiosity and find evidence for the truth, instead of the negative thoughts you have.
Setting Boundaries: Establish clear boundaries around your time, relationships, job, etc., so you have more energy and space to prepare for confrontations and feedback, and to process the information you receive.
Practicing Self-Care: Coaching helps you find the value in taking care of yourself but also the time to do it.Prioritizing self-care reduces stress and anxiety and increases resilience. This sometimes includes meditation,journaling, exercise, or spending time in nature.
Confrontation and feedback, both positive and negative, are part of life. Learning to trust yourself instead of your anxious thoughts allows you to let go of the emotions that come up when you're faced with uncomfortable or negative interactions.
Remember, when you're highly sensitive, feedback can feel like an attack, but that doesn't mean the intent was malicious.Often it was just an opinion or statement that caused your nervous system to fire up. Since the feedback or constructive criticism is usually given to help you improve or succeed, you have the opportunity to use it to your benefit. It just takes practice and some new skills.
Using Negative Feedback and Criticism for Growth
Negative feedback can be tough to take for anyone, but it's especially difficult for highly sensitive people. What that means for you is that in order to take that feedback and let it go or use it to your advantage, you have to learn how to:
Prepare for feedback in advance
Learn to manage your emotions
Learn to listen and trust yourself and your intuition
When you learn how to do these three things, you can separate yourself from your emotions, calm your body so you don't feel so anxious, and think clearly. You value and trust yourself so the negative feedback or constructive criticism becomes suggestions you use to improve your work without guilt, people-pleasing, or shame.
I can't promise you that you won't still be sensitive, but I can tell you that you can learn to manage your emotions, stay calm without getting defensive or hurt, and trust yourself so negative feedback doesn't crush you.
Wouldn't being able to use feedback to help you improve without letting it tear you apart make work a lot less stressful and maybe even more fun?
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