Most of us have been “gobsmacked” at some point in our life. Learning how to deal with it is crucial
I love that word – gobsmacked. I learned it whilst living in Australia a few years back. Basically, it means surprised but in a rather negative way. Usually it comes in the form of a verbal wallop that rocks our world. It blasts everything about us and tests (perhaps confirms?) what we thought about ourselves.
Bad supervisors abound. The Peter Principle™ is alive and well. Consequently, many “leaders” are more likely to talk than to listen. Bad leaders have no filter and tend to say whatever is on their minds. Insecure in their position, they are apt to blame others. A bad supervisor may have said …
- “You aren’t hearing me! Shut up, shut up, shut up.”
- “Think about leaving — I need warriors not wimps”
- “You only want to be right. You are manipulative. You don’t care about others”
- “This line of work does not suit you”
- “I think it’s time you consider looking for another job”
- “The hole you’ve dug for yourself is just too deep.”
In my own life I can recall a comment from a superior who, in hindsight, was the one most unsuited for his role. He should never have been promoted into a position of such power. But, no matter – he was the one in charge. He said to me in an annual performance review, “I cannot believe you have a master’s degree in this stuff! You are fucking clueless.” To this day I can still feel my physical response – a sickening bile rising in my throat. My weak knees. My urge to flee (rather than stay and fight).
Even less severe comments are just as damaging to our self-image. Snide little passive aggressive comments can be just as powerful. And for most of us, there is no amount of courage that can be summoned in the moment to fight back. Most people will describe their immediate emotional response to both severe and less-severe comments with words like dumbfounded, flabbergasted, shocked, stunned, or numb. They reported a welling of shame and embarrassment. Words like worthlessness, hurt, sadness, and self-doubt, came out.
Look, we all crave approval from our superiors. At the same time, we fear hearing the truth, or at least the “truth” that our most critical inner self believes to be the case. When someone delivers the truth, we are stunned that someone else sees what our inner critic has been telling us all along – that we are useless. We all live with an undercurrent of terror that we aren’t worthy. Critical feedback only confirms this.
Moreover, critical feedback threatens two of our most fundamental psychological needs: safety and belonging through worth. Safety is all about physical safety but also social safety. Belonging through worth is all about those erstwhile notions of social acceptance, self-respect, self-regard, or self-confidence. Safety is often over-valued in the sense that little of what a boss does and says can actually result in being less safe in a strict sense. After all, words can never hurt us, right?
But there are times when feedback does include threats to our safety. The most common feedback (if we can call it that) is, “I’m going to fire you.” In this moment our lives flash before us. All that we have worked toward, or are working for, is now threatened, almost at an existential level.
Fear is a natural response. Fear and dread. Fear of becoming destitute. Dread of the immediate future.
Anyway, the only answer is to build what therapists call resilience, otherwise known as thick skin. While most of us crave the approval of powerful people and hope that their positive endorsement might finally quiet feelings of nagging inadequacy, it is inescapable that when it doesn’t come, or when the exact opposite is delivered, we are crushed.
Leaders – supervisor, bosses – who engage in this kind of character assassination are themselves suffering from any number of inadequacies of their own. But this piece isn’t about them. It’s about what YOU can do to find the relevant “truth” inside of harsh criticisms and thereby build resilience.
We need to learn how to play the game, so to speak, and to take relentless criticism with the old-fashioned inner knowledge that, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”
- It isn’t easy, but once you learn that YOU are responsible for your own safety, you can endure almost any delivery.
- You are responsible for reminding yourself of your own self-efficacy.
- You are responsible for scouring the feedback for actionable truths.
- Remember this: The feedback is either true, false, or more often, a mix of the two.
- Learn, therefore, to parse out the falsehoods and hang onto the kernels of worth.
There is a process that can be followed, and researchers call it the CURE. It’s an easily remembered acronym and involves processes of …
(C) Collecting Yourself. Breathe deeply and slowly. Remind yourself that you are safe. It can act as a signal that you don’t need to be aroused for physical defense. Noticing your feelings helps, too. Are you hurt, scared, embarrassed, ashamed? The more connected you are to these primary feelings the less you become consumed with secondary effects like anger, defensiveness, or exaggerated fear. Collect yourself by consciously connecting with soothing truths, for example by repeating phrases like, “This can’t hurt me. I’m safe,” or “If I made a mistake, it doesn’t mean I am a mistake.”
(U) Understanding What’s Going On. Seek understanding. Be curious. Ask questions. Ask for examples. And then just listen. Detach yourself from what is being said as though it is being said about a third person. I call this “going clinical.” Step outside of yourself and bypass the need to evaluate what you’re hearing. Simply act like a good reporter trying to understand the story.
(R) Recovery. When it’s right, simply remove yourself. Explain that you want some time to reflect and that you’ll respond when you have a chance to do so. Give yourself permission to feel and recover from the experience before doing any evaluation of what you heard. Simply say, “I will take a look at that.” However, don’t engagement in agreement or, for that matter, disagreement. Simply promise to look sincerely at what you were told on your own time. You can end a challenging episode by simply saying, “It’s important to me that I get this right. I need some time. And I’ll get back to you to let you know where I come out.”
(E) Examining what you were told. If you’ve done a good job reassuring yourself of your safety and worth, rather than poking holes in the feedback, look for truth. If it’s 90% fluff and 10% substance, look for the substance. There is almost always at least a kernel of truth in what people are telling you. Scour the message until you find it. Then, if appropriate, re-engage with the person who shared the feedback and acknowledge what you heard, what you accept, and what you commit to do. At times, this may mean sharing your view of things. If you’re doing so with no covert need for their approval, you won’t need to be defensive.
Don’t go about living life waiting for someone to come along who will point out just how worthless you truly are.
You aren’t.
Every single human being has worth. If you can learn to cultivate your resilience you become far better equipped to deal with a life that was never meant to be fair. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Be curious- great advice for most anything. I see less of that in “leaders” than before.
Why is that, I wonder? After all, we are curious as children; indeed, childhood is all about investigating and exploring. Heck, you and I were doing that well into young adulthood and beyond. But for so many adults it evaporates. I have a theory that bad parenting has a lot to do with it. The notion of so-called “helicopter” parenting and the idea that you as a child (and later as an adult) are to be protected from everything in life. You have called it “de-risking life” which of course, is impossible. I totally agree. It is only through investigation and exploration – the results of curiosity – that we grow and grow.