Once, many years ago, I was walking down a road, when a hand suddenly came to rest upon my shoulder. I jumped in surprise, and turned to see a man looking down at me. He was staring at somewhere around my waist. The word “PERVERT” immediately formed itself in my mind, but before I could react, the man said, “Wow, your wrists, you must play cricket?”
“Ummmm, Yes, a little!” I said. Everyone in India plays a little cricket.
“You must be a batsman,” he continued. Now, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered. “I have not seen wrists like yours… they are almost like Sachin Tendulkar’s, or Brian Lara’s,” he finished. If you don’t know who those two are, suffice it to say that they are the best of the best in the game of Cricket. I was flattered earlier, but I think the English language does not have a word to describe what I felt now. We talked for a little bit more, and then we parted ways.
Till this day, I sometimes feel, that I made a wrong career choice. Maybe I was born to be a cricketer.
Whatever we do in our lives, we are bound to have people who tell us how good, or how bad, we are at what we do. Writing is no different. In fact, blogging makes giving feedback even easier. For a blogger, a comment on the blog is a thing of beauty – a joy forever. It can make, or mar, his day.
It is, however, not a good idea to take all feedback seriously, because you might end up like the man who tried to please everyone, and ended up killing his donkey.
So, what should you do?
You should first understand that there are basically three types of people who will give you feedback:
1. I don’t really care, but I will tell you what I feel. Sometimes people do not have the time to give a lot of thought to what they are saying, but they have to, so they do. Like if someone comes up to you in the dying moments of an important game (choose a sport of your choice here), and asks, “How am I looking?” You might say, “Good!” without even bothering to look at the person. You said something simply because you were expected to. This happens quite often. We are desperate for feedback on our latest post, and send an email out to everyone you know. Most of them are too busy to read, and will simply send an email back, saying something like, “That was good. keep writing!”
These people are neither good nor bad, they simply have no reason to give you accurate feedback.
2. I can’t tell the truth because I am too nice. This is the second category of feedback givers, who can’t say bad things about people. They are essentially nice people, who only say nice things about other people. I am sure more than half of the comments in the world are nothing but, “Nice post!”.
These people may feel that there is something wrong about the post, but they are just too nice to say it.
Then, there are the opposites, who have to criticise because they love to. They will never like your post, and will leave a comment like,”Even a three year old could write better than this.” I am sure you know someone like that, don’t you?
3. I will say what I believe is the truth, and nothing but the truth. This category of feedback providers is hard to find. They will find the time to go through your work carefully, and give you their sincerest advice. They may appreciate your work, or they may criticise it brutally. They will not sugar-coat their words, nor dip them in poison. They will tell you what they truly think your work is worth, whether you like what they have to say, or not.
The point of categorising your feedback providers into the above categories is to filter out noise from true feedback, and to stay as close to the reality as possible. Most feedback providers will fall into the first two categories, and thus it is very easy to believe that you have become a first rate writer, simply because every one of the comments on your last post was one or the other version of ” Nice Post.” Therefore, it is best to ignore the feedback provided by people who fall in the first two categories.
It is the third category of feedback providers you should pay close attention to, even if they might not know you. They don’t need to. They are commenting on your work, and you would do good to pay attention. They are the ones that can help you get from good to better, and from better to best.
Lastly, don’t let any feedback get to you. Feedback is merely one of the many tools that can help you improve, but no one knows you better than you. So, don’t let anyone put you down, or make you feel like you are too good to be where you are.
Don’t let anyone make you feel that you should have been a cricketer, instead of what you are!
Image courtesy: ispap from sxc.hu
If I may, I would like to include one more type and that would be the person who reads and says nothing. What are we to think about these individuals? One can see this most clearly on Entrecard because many drop but do not comment. I would rather have some kind of comment than none at all. This has to do with common courtesy as well.
Friends 4 Life!
One observation from me too – the result of having received a real brutal criticism that made me stop writing for three months (it was my first & the most harsh one so far):
Remember that whoever criticises your work is just presenting his opinion, it does not mean that he is ‘right’ or you (the writer) are ‘wrong’. It’s only a case of “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”, you can understand the feedback, absorb it, read up on it, and then decide whether to accept it or not.
This is just an elaboration of your point#3. 🙂
Nice post. Oops! 😀
@jean_blore
That’s the key thing isn’t it: knowing yourself first. Without that as a springboard, I think we become susceptible to any comment – as if trying to find a mirror that’s not necessarily there. cheers
I visit hundreds of blogs a day and most of the time I don’t say anything because I don’t have much to add to the topic, or it just doesn’t capture my attention. Yet this post did capture my attention. I’m not sure if the three ways you’ve chosen to divide up people that comment is the same three ways that I would divide up commenters. I’m not sure it really matters that much. Yet what does matter is well thought out, heartfelt comments. The same applies to good blog posts, and I feels to me that this was a good blog post. It compelled me to comment.