Ask Friends What You Could Change About Yourself
A Surprising Lesson Gaining Positive Feedback
Years ago, when I was about 25, my life coach suggested that I talk to a few of my friends and ask them to tell me the one thing they would change about me.
You can imagine what a scary exercise that would be! Here I was, on a quest to feel better about myself, not having grown into my own skin yet at the time, and this person who is supposed to be helping me sends me on a journey to recruit negative feedback. Or so I thought…
The response was eclectic. Overall, I learned that I was being so hard on myself and found out that no one else was criticizing me.
One friend simply said, “I don’t like this at all…you should be who you are and not have to change anything about yourself!” And she refused to note anything “bad”. To be fair, this is a friend I grew up with, played with, and went to school with, so we had known each other our entire lives. Which means she knew me pretty well and her opinion had obvious merit! She had nothing critical to say at all and sang my praises. Oddly enough, I thought to myself, “Well, that’s all great stuff but it’s not the point of this!” That was odd to me because I realized at that moment that I actually did have a genuine interest and wanted to know what I could do differently — to grow and be a better person.
Another friend told me, “I wish you didn’t blame yourself for everything bad that happens.” Wow. In an instant, she had me thinking about all the things that were out of my control and how I was putting unnecessary pressure on myself.
A third friend said he would like to see me become a bit more judgmental of others. I immediately questioned that one!! “Wait — more judgmental? Isn’t that the worst quality in someone?” He said, “Not at all. You blindly trust the wrong people, and I would like you to gather facts and data about their actions and behavior before you put yourself in a position to be hurt by someone. You need to spend more time watching people and getting to know them for who they are before you start immediately deciding who they are, who you think they are, or who you want them to be. There are some not so nice people out there, and it would benefit you to keep an eye open for that.” He was right, too. Over time, I noticed that I was surrounding myself with better people and not so focused on trying to save the underdog. People have issues, and while it’s great to want to lend a hand, I learned a valuable lesson in who had temporary issues and who had long-term issues that only Dr. Phil can help!!
I heard a great saying once: Everyone is crazy…it’s just to what extent.
It’s so true! We all have “stuff” to work through — the trick is to work through those things without bringing others down and without allowing ourselves to be brought down.
At any rate, back to my original point. What I expected to be a huge ego deflater was actually one of the biggest, most important, and enlightening life lessons and growth opportunities I’ve ever had. I was no longer afraid of what anyone thought of me. Here I was waiting for negative feedback and criticism, things I may have secretly thought about myself, and instead, I was able to see myself differently — from the eyes of the people who loved me most. The purpose was not to twist myself into pretzels trying to make other people happy, and it was not to focus solely on expecting negative answers. The intent was to put faith in those around me to want to help me succeed. It was to prove that I was seeing myself much more critically than those around me. It was to show that I needed to give myself more credit for the great things I never thought about and removing unnecessary burdens. I encourage you to give it a try; you’ll likely hear something that will make a positive difference!
Thanks for reading! And remember — Smart people read. Smarter people write!
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