Feedback is Essential for Improvement

Feedback is important, and usually positive feedback (although is nice) does not help with growth at all. I find that constructive feedback is much more useful. Whenever I read reviews of products, I get more out of the negative comments because they address issues, where the positive comments usually are just singing praises. 

The key to receiving constructive feedback is not to let emotions play a apart in the listening process. Emotions will blind the person to what is actually being said. Having an open mind is also essential.

So cas yesterday was really feeling alone (me being in the Dallas area and busy and her being 4 hour drive away) and really needed attention. I had told her about a couple of punishment she is getting Monday and Wednesday, for behavior I will let her tell you about. And she broke down in tears more than I have seen in quite some time. After trying to console her and having zero success I was at my wits end. I texted her to give me some feedback with the following text: “Fill in the blank with action words, cas loves Chief because ________” This text was for her. This text was for her to refocus on what she loves about me. After I got her list I texted her “Chief could improve in the following areas: ____________ (you need to be 100% honest)” This was for my feedback. I had promised her in my vow to her “I vow to know you and to study you and dwell within you according to that knowledge.” Well this was my way to study her and find out what she needed. I had my list of things I needed to improve but I needed to know what was on her list for me to improve. Her list over lapped my list however,  there was things that were not on my list at all. So I took my mental list added hers and moved all of hers items to the top of my list.

cas's grade is Excellent!

After that was done, she turned my experiment on to me and asked me the same question of “Chief loves cas because _______________” and I was honest when I told why I loved her. Which I think made her feel good because it was a list of reasons I loved her and that it had nothing to do with her behavior. Then after some hesitation she texted me “cas needs to improve in the following areas”.  She jokingly said, that the list was going to be long. And then she received the following text, “************, ********** and *********” That is all that I see she needs to improve. (BTW that's between her and I) I can  tell you that she has an excellent score and doesn't need to improve much.




Chief [c]