Hi Melissa,

The note about not taking feedback personally is a really important one to remember, but a difficult one to master. It’s important you separate yourself from your work, and that the people giving you feedback try to do the same as well.

From the article:

Refrain from using personal pronouns to describe the design. Use “The screens looks unbalanced due to the weight of this content”, rather than “I don’t like how you’ve laid out the content, it looks unbalanced.”. The difference is subtle, but it separates the work from the designer, so when I receive that feedback it feels like a critique on the design but not on me personally.

If someone gives you feedback that feels too personal, remind them to frame their critique in a different way.

But no matter what feedback you get, you have to have a thick skin and not let it get to you. Don’t ever take it as a personal attack on your skills or experience. It’s a critique on one specific instance in which you applied what you know to solve a particular problem. If you failed to solve it perfectly the first time, that doesn’t diminish your value as a designer.

Critique is the most powerful tool we have to improve, so take it positively and learn from it.