Dealing With Negative Feedback
How can we push past fear of judgment and failure?
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You will receive negative feedback on something you love and worked your ass off on. There is no way around it. Maybe you’ve already received such horrible feedback that you thought about quitting all together. Me too!!
This week a friend reached out to ask how I deal with public criticism. I was already in a place of thinking about this because I was seeking your opinion on this very newsletter — and anytime you open yourself up to judgment, it’s vulnerable. It was perfect timing.
Here’s her question, in screenshot form:
Is my hair gorgeous now BECAUSE dozens of teenagers criticized my awful bleach job in YouTube comments? I don’t know. I guess that’s a question for me and my therapist.
The truth is, coping with and bouncing back from negative feedback is something I’m still working on. I assume all creatives are working on this, because it’s the #1 thing that prevents people from sharing their art with the world. Sometimes it is so hard to keep going.
So what helps?
Remembering that art is always completely subjective. Nobody likes everything. If your work receives no criticism, you’re very boring. Differing opinions are good. They show you have a unique perspective and point of view.
There are people out there who will love scripts you hate, and hate the ones you love. What matters is that you’re proud of your own work. Somebody else’s opinion is not more valuable than your own. Find the people who respond to your work, rather than molding yourself to fit into other peoples desires or expectations.
Plus, most of the time, you’re being criticized by people who are just mad that they will never create anything themselves. A lot of the people leaving mean comments or talking shit behind your back have never done what they actually want with their lives. Then, they take out their frustration and regret on creative people who don’t let fear cripple them.
A lot of critics who write uninspired articles filled with sentences like “this is the worst garbage fire thing OF ALL TIME EVER I HATE IT,” are also just sitting on a throne of unfollowed dreams eager to make people feel bad about creating.
Remember that Jerry Saltz tweet, with perhaps… the most absurd take… I’ve ever heard about criticism?
“The artist only creates” — right, we form a unique idea out of thin air and bring it to life. Totally NBD!!!
I’m not saying there aren’t brilliant critics. There are.
This brings me to the hard truth we all must accept about feedback we don’t like: Sometimes, it’s accurate, helpful, and we can learn from it.
When the film I starred in, The End of Us, was reviewed by IndieWire, they called my performance “transparent at times, but wickedly droll.” It hurt. I’m not gonna lie. But I also loved it so much, I made it my Twitter bio for a while.
The transparency part wasn’t nice, but if I’m being honest with myself, it does make sense. The film had no script to rehearse from. We improvised most of it, so I was often on the verge of breaking into laughter. I’d never taken an acting class. I’m really proud of my performance in The End of Us. I think it’s natural and funny and great. However, if I’m going to seriously pursue performing, I also need to improve. After the film, I took acting lessons at John Rosenfeld (who I loved). I worked on my transparency. I’m happy IndieWire pointed it out, even if it was public.
Receiving negative feedback felt bad, and also great. I helped create something, and people watched it at a level that invited criticism. That’s something to celebrate.
Sharing your work requires vulnerability, which is trained out of us from birth. If you’re releasing something you’ve created into the wild, you’ve already won. No reaction should make you feel less proud.
But, you’re human, so it might.
When you’re hurting, try to center yourself in a way that works for you — for me, it’s usually with breathwork, meditation, journaling, and talking to friends who will tell me I’m awesome. I try to repeat affirmations to myself, like “at least I tried” or “it doesn’t matter what other people think, as long as I’m proud of it” or sometimes, when I agree with it, “this feedback will make me better.”
Sit in the pain. Accept that it hurts. Then, keep going.
You don’t have to believe in yourself or think you’re brilliant, you just need to keep going anyways. (Aimée and I discussed this the other week).
You cannot let anybody else stop you from fulfilling your life’s purpose and achieving your deepest desires. So you must keep going.
Find the people who will root for you. When you do, rely on them, reach out to them, work with them. These are your people.
Put the work out there, and as you do, remind yourself it’s about the process, not the result or the response. Hit publish, send, play, whatever — and tell yourself that you are awesome every single day.
I’ll start: YOU ARE AWESOME!!!!
Go forth and share your work!
PS — Here’s what comes up when I wrote “negative feedback” on Substack’s photo search tool. I feel horrible for this man and his saving account of coins.
