One of my favorite books is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Since I posted about complaining at work, I’ve been meditating a lot on the second agreement: Don’t take anything personally.

“Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally. Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world. Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds.”

Performance review time can sometimes be a little challenging for me. I struggle with emotional reactions to critical feedback, even though it’s only ever a tiny portion of the content in my reviews. As a sensitive perfectionist, I tend to take on the emotional burden of other people’s opinions of me and/or my work, so I find it helpful to regularly remind myself of the second agreement.

This is definitely not to say that we shouldn’t value feedback; every single person has something they can teach us. But I find it easier to not take criticism personally, if I remember that all feedback is filtered through that individual’s worldview, assumptions, and interpretation of events. Not taking things personally actually allows me to be more open to feedback, because it makes it a little easier to acknowledge and then set aside my defensiveness and focus on listening to the message without judgment.

What tools do you find useful for practicing skillful communication?