“Recognize the Costs of Avoiding Feedback

When people avoid feedback, they miss out on benefits (covered earlier) and incur costs. For example, you might worry for longer than you need to about how your work will be perceived. Do you tend to think about the potential pain of getting feedback more than you think about the costs of avoiding it? If yes, you can consciously correct for this thinking bias. You might notice that this bias is another example of a principle we discussed earlier, in the chapter on hesitation: Anxious people tend to think about the potential harm of acting more than the potential harm of not acting.
Experiment: To get some big-picture perspective on what avoiding feedback has cost you, try answering the following questions. Write down one specific example of each. If you can’t think of answers, let the questions marinate for a day or two.

--Have you avoided seeking feedback early on only to later realize that earlier feedback would’ve saved you from continuing down the wrong track for so long? When?
--Have you avoided feedback only to later realize your fears of negative feedback were unjustified? How long did you worry unnecessarily? What was that like for you?
--Have you had times when your predictions of negative feedback came true, but it was a much milder experience than you’d anticipated? Have you had an experience where you realized that making the required changes was much easier than you thought, and you had endured extra worry for no reason?
--What cool opportunities have you opted out of because you didn’t want to expose yourself to even the possibility of negative feedback?”