My life changed the day someone told me I don't need to action every piece of feedback I get.

My default assumption was that they must know better than me. They're more experienced, or they know more or - it didn't matter really. They must be right.

Until this seed was planted in my mind. I began to wonder what did make feedback worthy of my attention and action. Over the years, I've developed a short list of questions I ask myself whenever I receive feedback.

Even with this, I often have an immediate emotional reaction to negative feedback. That's okay. I can go away and regulate (usually a walk) and then come back to process it when I'm ready, knowing I've got my list to work through. Today, I'm sharing it with you too.

• Do you respect this person?

• Is there any reason you have to action this feedback? (e.g. they're your line manager)

• What in this feedback is factual?

• What in this feedback is opinion?

• Have I received any similar feedback in the past? (Is this a recurring theme?)

• Is any of the feedback useful?

• If yes, make yourself a to do list of the actions you want to take.

• Is there anything from this feedback that you want to save to refer to later? (e.g. any positive comments)

• I recommend having a single place where you keep all the positive feedback you receive so you can look back at it when you need evidence that you are, in fact, wonderful.

Once I've gone through that process and taken any useful actions and comments I might want to refer back to, I respond. It can be as simple as thanking the person for their input, and saying you'll take their comments into consideration. After that, I delete it, so I don't have a chance to keep rereading it.

If you take anything from this post - I hope it's that other people's opinions aren't inherently more valid than your own.