When receiving feedback, two of the most important words you can use are ‘thank you’.

It’s so natural to get defensive when people make suggestions. Our monkey mind kicks in (read Steve Peters’ The Chimp Paradox or Paul McGee’s SUMO if you don’t know what I’m speaking about). Our focus is on the reasons why their ideas won’t work, we don’t want to move beyond our comfort zone and try something new.

Try something else. The next time somebody offers you feedback or makes a suggestion, say ‘thank you’. You don’t have to commit to doing anything (this isn’t a ‘say yes to everything’ experiment). Just buy yourself some time to reflect. Let the idea sit with you for a few days and see what comes up for you.

Saying ‘thank you’ instead of ‘but’ gives you that space to truly consider the gift you have been offered. It also feels much better to the person making the suggestion – even if people don’t take action based on our advice, we like to know that they have respected and thought about it.