Atharv’s Chronicle 19-05-24 Cultivating Positivity: Raising Self-Belief Before Feedback

Hey Friends,

This week I was fortunate enough to meet my guru Mahatria Ra in person on Sunday 19th of May!

I took a couple of my friends along with me and witnessed a power packed wonderful 2 hour session.

On a rainy evening in Bangalore, it was pouring heavily outside the hall, but inside, the amount of knowledge and wisdom was just as overwhelming. There were many seekers and the room as filled with all positive energy. to a great vibe.

There are many learnings from the session through discussions and Q&A’s, Here I am discussing about one of it :

First Raise the Self Belief and then Pass the Feedback!

Whenever we want to pass on the comment or pass the critic or feedback about anything to anyone, we must make sure, first, we are raising the self belief of that person and then passing the feedback, the sequence in which we convey the feedback matters the most. Boosting the person’s self-belief first will make them more receptive to constructive feedback.

Here are a few examples related to daily life situations:

– If your child is not doing well in a subject, instead of saying “You are failing this subject,” you could say, “I can see you’re doing great in so and so subject, proud of you!, I also see you are finding this subject challenging. Let’s figure out a study plan together.”

– When providing feedback to a colleague on a report, instead of saying “There were many errors in your report,” you could say, “I really appreciate your dedication, You’ve done a great job on the research for this report. Let’s work on proofreading it together for errors next time”.

– When providing feedback to a chef at a restaurant, instead of saying “The soup was too salty,” you could say, “I really enjoyed the main course and The soup had a really nice texture. It might be even better with a bit less salt next time.”

– Say, your mom has tried a new dish and it didn’t quite go well, instead of saying “Mom, I didn’t like the new dish you made,” you could say, “My friends always wait for my lunchbox mom, I really appreciate the effort you put into trying new recipes for us. however this dish didn’t quite hit the mark for me, but I’m excited to try your next creation.”

Remember, the idea is to highlight the positives first, which will make the person more open to receiving and acting on our feedback.

There are many other learnings which I want to share – but in future newsletters.
One learning and one implementation at a time.

Hope you enjoyed reading this. Thank you.
Until next time, keep believing and stay positive!