It's perfectly human to care about what people think of us. It's very easy to say that we should not pay any attention to what other people think, but in reality, I think listening to feedback from people we trust is a great way to learn and grow.

However, I believe there is a clear difference between using feedback as a way to grow, versus using the feedback from others as the only guide for how we are really doing in the game of life.

We need to have perspective for ourselves.

I believe we should also set our own standards, and we should set them high. 

As a former choir director, I was always putting my product on stage for others to see and judge. My choirs competed nationally, and performed at least 6 times per year in front of audiences. 

One of the defining moments in my teaching career came when I was preparing some students for a holiday performance at a local senior citizens center, and I felt that the preparation and focus during rehearsal was just not where it should be. I remember really coming down hard on the choir, saying that we were just a few days away from the performance, yet we were not yet up to par.

One of the students replied: "But Mr. Carroll, the audience won't know the difference if we make a mistake in that section". I replied: "You're probably right, but I'll know, and so will you" I did not want the students to be ok with being mediocre, simply because that particular audience may not be technically skilled as choral musicians.

There was also a time when the audience WAS technically skilled, at contest when the judges absolutely slammed our choir. We were told we were out of our league for that particular performance. Just as I didn't want us to think we were better than we were in the first example, I knew in this case it was important for me to show the students we were also not terrible, simply beacause the judges slammed us.

At first, my students were devastated after this judging experience. Frankly, everyone at their school and in the local community had been loving their performances, and yet I knew there was so much potential still for this group that would never be realized if they stayed in that comfort zone of constant applause. 

I was proud of my students. Why? I knew that we would be ripped apart at this contest. I knew that this particular contest was several levels above anything they had ever experienced before, and I wanted them to see what their true potential was if they set their own standards higher, so we could work even harder.

When we returned to school, I shared with the students how proud I was, and asked them if they felt they had prepared as best they could and put their best effort forth. They said yes. I asked them if they wanted to still get better. They said yes.

I told them that no judge could ever take that away from them. No score on a sheet of paper could measure how well they performed against their own standards. I also shared with them how valuable this critique was, because we now knew what we needed to do if we wanted to raise our own standards even further.

One year later, we returned to that contest, and our scores drastically improved. 

It is important to give the audience a great show, and pay attention to their response a little, it's even more important to know that we gave everything we could during each rehearsal. Our own standards mattered more. Even if we made mistakes during the performance (and we always did), we wanted to be able to walk off the stage knowing that we upheld our own standard of excellence.

As a person, if I am only trying to achieve something because of what "the audience" might think, or what a judge "might say" I believe I am missing out on my full potential. This is why I attend conferences, conventions, and always try to push myself into new situations that I think will help me grow. I need to see what is happening in other places, because it often inspires me to set my own standards higher, or reaffirms that I am in fact on the right track.

Once I set my standards, I can change them. In fact, I should always be raising them. I'm not only talking about business performance. I am talking about my standards as a husband, a son, or a friend. Every decision I make is held up to the standard of "what kind of ______ am I?" If I am not acting according to that standard, I need to make a change, or else I will feel unfulfilled and ultimately unhappy.

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Photo Credit: RickM2007