The feedback becomes headline news in the latest issue of The Daily Me: “Hardworking Academic” becomes “Fool Who Wasted Years Chasing Tenure.” “Good Son” gets replaced by “Heartless Child Fails Mother.” The feedback is the headline in our identity story, and all the other things we know about ourselves get shoved to the back page. And in this way,

While our identities are built from the endless complexity of our life experiences, we tend to hold these identities as simple labels such as I’m competent, I’m good, I’m worthy of love. These labels serve an important function: Life can be messy and confusing, and simple identity labels remind us of our values and priorities, of what we’re trying

Our ability to metabolize challenging feedback is driven by the particular way we tell our identity story. Some people tell their identity story in ways that cause their identity to be brittle, while others tell their identity story in ways that allow it to be robust. Those in the latter group are predisposed to treat feedback not as a threat to

Identity is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves—what we’re like, what we stand for, what we’re good at, what we’re capable of. I’m a strong leader; I’m an involved grandmother; I’m rational; I’m passionate; I’m always fair.1 When feedback contradicts or challenges our identity, our story about who we are can unravel.

But even “actual size” feedback can destabilize our sense of ourselves. Feedback can contradict or undermine the story we tell about who we are, or it can confirm our worst fears about ourselves. Learning profitably from feedback is not only about how we interpret the feedback; it’s also about how we hold our identity.

Separate the strands — of feeling / story / feedback. Contain the story — what is this about and what isn’t it about? Change your vantage point — to another, to the future, to the comedy. Accept that you can’t control how others see you. Don’t buy their story about you wholesale. Others’ views of you are input, not imprint. Reach out to supportive

Summary: SOME KEY IDEAS Before we can decide what we think of the feedback we get, we need to remove the distortions: Be prepared, be mindful — recognize your feedback footprint.

Do these strong negative emotions serve any useful purpose in our lives? Sometimes they do. Emotional distress can send us under the covers for weeks, but it can also cause us—force us—to reevaluate ourselves and our lives in ways that we otherwise simply would not. Strong negative emotions can keep us in a rut, but they can also help us break out

the most from the feedback that in the moment is the most distressing. But for some of us, that distress turns into long-term anxiety or despair, and we can become depressed, nonfunctioning, or suicidal. All