Today, anyone can publicly criticize what you do. Because you do something, they have something to criticize. Yes, criticism can be mean and hurtful but this should not prevent you from sharing what you do. It’s essential to get real opinions about what you do in order to progress better and faster. However, you should protect yourself from the crowd. Anyone who produces and shares things need a way to get better at filtering the negative inputs. In fact, you can’t assign all inputs the same weight. You need a way to categorize and treat them efficiently: what I call a negative inputs filtering matrix. To me it first starts by differentiating the three types of input and then, knowing when and how to act on them. I use to categorize criticism between comments, feedback and advices. Comments are broad and subjective opinions (can start with « according to my taste … »). Feedback is more specific and objective (can start with « I was trying to … but … »). Advice is more like a mix of both (can start with « according to my knowledge … »). With comments you need to pay attention to volume. If a large percentage of people is posting the exact same comment, you should start considering it. With feedback, you need to narrow it down. With a little follow up you can confirm that the person is from your target audience and better understand the root of the problem for future improvements. With advices you need to do profiling. Check who is sharing this piece of advice and why does he care. Having a pragmatic way to process negative inputs is a good way to keep learning and avoid being discouraged.
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Inputs filtering matrix
Today, anyone can publicly criticize what you do. Because you do something, they have something to criticize. Yes, criticism can be mean and hurtful but this should not prevent you from sharing what you do. It’s essential to get real opinions about what you do in order to progress better and faster. However, you should protect yourself from the crowd. Anyone who produces and shares things need a way to get better at filtering the negative inputs. In fact, you can’t assign all inputs the same weight. You need a way to categorize and treat them efficiently: what I call a negative inputs filtering matrix. To me it first starts by differentiating the three types of input and then, knowing when and how to act on them. I use to categorize criticism between comments, feedback and advices. Comments are broad and subjective opinions (can start with « according to my taste … »). Feedback is more specific and objective (can start with « I was trying to … but … »). Advice is more like a mix of both (can start with « according to my knowledge … »). With comments you need to pay attention to volume. If a large percentage of people is posting the exact same comment, you should start considering it. With feedback, you need to narrow it down. With a little follow up you can confirm that the person is from your target audience and better understand the root of the problem for future improvements. With advices you need to do profiling. Check who is sharing this piece of advice and why does he care. Having a pragmatic way to process negative inputs is a good way to keep learning and avoid being discouraged.