Imagine for a moment that every time you submitted your work the only feedback you ever heard was "Great" or "Thanks".
How would that make you feel?
Engaged or isolated?
Would you wonder if they are even giving your work proper consideration?
Feedback is critical to improvement. Improvement is a continuous never ending process.
Try leaning into it, Actively asking "Where is this falling short?" "Where is my thinking flawed?" Soliciting comment in this manner makes you an active participant in the feedback process.
Having followed this approach for my entire career, I can say that it has paid off handsomely. Some of the most valuable criticism coming from professionals that would not have offered actionable feedback had I not pushed past their initial stock "looks good" response.
Most of the time criticism = engagement, a person taking time to pay attention to your output.
Making yourself vulnerable in this way will encourage a subset of others to behave similarly, which could lead to some pretty awesome peer relationships. Certainly has for me.
As a 51 year old man who has been lifting consistently for 35 years it is heartening to see these studies back up my anecdotal results. My workouts have evolved as I have aged certainly, but I remain dedicated to keeping muscle packed on. Doing so has kept my weight under control (I restrict type of foods, but never portion) Made me more injury resistant (I can take a fall) and remain active enough to enjoy moving my body through space. Tracking with others my age I can see that significant performance deltas have opened. We are decades apart. My takeaway is start early and stick with it. Never stop. One needs strength, flexibility, and endurance. Keep switching it around, confuse the body, and generally always be terrible at something. Working out is about probing your weaknesses not celebrating one’s strength. If there is an issue to take with weight lifting it is that it tends to encourage practitioners to reach higher and higher levels of strength in a relatively small range of movement. This is motivating when young and the thing that kills momentum once you get older and don’t heal so fast.
Having followed this approach for my entire career, I can say that it has paid off handsomely. Some of the most valuable criticism coming from professionals that would not have offered actionable feedback had I not pushed past their initial stock "looks good" response.
Most of the time criticism = engagement, a person taking time to pay attention to your output. Making yourself vulnerable in this way will encourage a subset of others to behave similarly, which could lead to some pretty awesome peer relationships. Certainly has for me.