{"id":13,"date":"2010-02-18T16:43:53","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T22:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/?p=13"},"modified":"2010-02-18T20:31:55","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T02:31:55","slug":"the-vision-quest-chronicles-2-the-demon-ego-posted-4-9-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/?p=13","title":{"rendered":"The Vision Quest Chronicles #2: The Demon Ego"},"content":{"rendered":"

What happens to your Vision when you put it out there and you get a negative reaction?<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

After installment #1 of The Vision Quest Chronicles I solicited feedback,\u00a0comments and stories from others living their Vision.\u00a0 I received several kind and supportive comments from people I know and a few contributions.\u00a0 I appreciated that. Then I received some feedback from a journalist I was acquainted with to which\u00a0I had a much stronger reaction. His critique held words like \u201cself promotional\u201d \u201cmarketing tool\u201d and \u201cnot from the heart\u201d but he was only getting warmed up.\u00a0 He then suggested that I was wasting my reader\u2019s time and concluded, \u201cat 700 words it is hardly an inviting blog.\u201d I have to admit I was shocked and hurt by his criticism and the harsh delivery.<\/p>\n

Why did the supportive comments make less of an impression on me? I decided to do some soul searching about my reaction and this is what I found.\u00a0 I felt vulnerable, because\u00a0I had put myself out there and felt like I had\u00a0been told it was not good enough\u2026I was not good enough.\u00a0I felt misunderstood and somehow shamed. It dredged up my\u00a0fear of failure.\u00a0 Maybe I would not achieve my Vision.\u00a0The worst part was that his words led me temporarily to doubt my Vision and it\u2019s usefulness to others.<\/p>\n

I had to\u00a0look at my part in this. I saw my own self-doubt and lack of confidence in myself and my Vision.\u00a0 If I were totally confident his words would not affect me. I also brought my characteristic sensitivity to the situation.\u00a0 I do not have \u201cthick skin.\u201d Also I gave more power to the criticism and this person who I don\u2019t even know than I did to those who were supportive and complimentary. I took his words personally.\u00a0 Ultimately the biggest mistake I made was giving this stranger more sway over me and my Vision than I was giving to\u00a0my Higher Power. The point of living your Vision is to bring something to the world and to others and\u00a0I had made it about me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After spending the time on this inventory I ultimately concluded that this experience was a gift. For one it made me look at my intention and my\u00a0Vision.\u00a0 It strengthened my resolve in my Vision.\u00a0 I realized that this experience will help me to empathize with others who experience the same thing and it is preparing me for the reality that when you put your work out there it will be criticized. I will have to get better at handling this.\u00a0 Perhaps most importantly (remains to be seen) this experience made me realize that the Vision is not about me but service to others and that my ego is not really the important part here. I keep forgetting that!<\/p>\n

What I\u2019d like to hear from you is how you have\u00a0handled similar situations.\u00a0 In the course of\u00a0living your\u00a0Vision\u00a0how have you dealt with criticism or negative reactions?<\/p>\n

(first posted 4.9.09)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What happens to your Vision when you put it out there and you get a negative reaction? After installment #1 of The Vision Quest Chronicles I solicited feedback,\u00a0comments and stories from others living their Vision.\u00a0 I received several kind and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[132,4],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-success","tag-success-coaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nicolecutts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}