Using Feedback: Commit

Episode Transcript

The Using Feedback Commit card states, “Once you adopt feedback, hold yourself accountable. People who use feedback to grow make commitments to themselves and others.” And the card invites you to sign the contract, which you can do by filling in the blanks: “In the next timeframe, I commit to practicing behavior change when specific event happens.”

Let’s talk about a gap almost nobody warns you about. So I’ve worked with many folks over the years who did everything right as it relates to feedback, up to a point. They receive feedback. They process it carefully. They genuinely decided the change was best for them. And then, in some ways because the change was hard, they never actually attempted it. Their decision to try was real, but the doing it, the hard work of trying, never happened.

This gap between deciding and doing arises for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it’s a lack of motivation. It’s like the energy that was present in the feedback conversation fades by the following week. Sometimes it’s simply not knowing how to start, so the change feels like a wall with kind of no door in it. And then sometimes the sense of urgency vanishes. Maybe there’s no deadline attached to, let’s say, becoming a better listener. So because of that, it just perpetually loses out to things with deadlines. Things with deadlines are not necessarily the most important thing. It just means they have a deadline attached to them. And then sometimes it’s fear, because once you attempt the change, you can fail at it, and not starting can be a way to protect yourself from that. And sometimes, honestly, there’s a part of us hoping that the whole thing will just dissolve, that the gap will stop mattering if we wait long enough.

The contract is one way to close that gap, and I want to be clear about what it’s for. This is not about piling additional pressure onto yourself. You likely have plenty. It’s something I think more interesting. When you build an accountability mechanism, you become far more inclined to think creatively about what actually needs to happen to bring the change to life. A vague intention lets your mind stay vague, but, “In the next two weeks, I commit to practicing my fallback phrase when I receive critical feedback in a meeting,” that specificity forces problem-solving. Which meetings? What will I actually say? What might get in the way?

There’s a beautiful parallel here from poetry, iambic pentameter, ten syllables, strict alternating rhythm. Sounds like it should suffocate creativity, but many poets have found for centuries that the opposite happens. The rigidity sparks creativity. The constraint forces choices that freedom never would have demanded, and the work can get better inside the form. The contract works the same way. Timeframe, behavior, trigger event, three constraints that can turn a wish or want into a design.

And notice the card says, “Commitments to yourself and others.” Telling one person about your contract adds a gentle second layer. Just the reality that another person knows can have a kind of powerful gravity to it.

That’s card 07 of the Using Feedback suit. If there’s feedback you decided to adopt weeks or months ago and still haven’t attempted, don’t blame yourself for being lazy. That’s not likely to help build the short- and long-term change you need. Instead, fill in the three blanks. Maybe post it on the wall somewhere. That structure might get you started and keep you going.