3 Reasons Other People’s Opinions Do Matter
By: Colton Tanner Casados-Medve
Tags: Self Improvement, Blogging, Creativity, Opinion, Growth

Aspiring creatives are often told to produce work purely for themselves — at least at the beginning of their journey.

The idea is that enjoying the process of creation is more important than worrying about the recognition our work receives.

I myself have repeated that advice on this blog, so my intention with this piece isn’t to refute it.

I do think enjoying the process of whatever it is we decide to do is more important than any recognition we might receive.

We can’t control recognition, but we can control the attitude we adopt toward the work we take up.

There are no guarantees that we will become financially independent as creatives, and so the real question we need to ask ourselves is, “Can I do what I do even if the money never comes?”

Learning to have fun while creating, setting one’s own goals and working diligently toward them, and not being too concerned with how others view our journey are all critical elements of getting back in touch with our creative nature.

That being said, I think there is an equally valid perspective regarding why we should make an effort to care about someone’s opinion when it stems from the genuine desire of wanting to give good feedback.

What I’m not suggesting is that we ought to let anyone who has a negative opinion of something we create completely obliterate our self-esteem, or even that we have to admit that they are one-hundred percent right in their assessment.

I’m merely suggesting that other people’s reactions to our work can teach us a lot about our strengths and weaknesses, provided we cultivate an attitude of being able to learn from feedback.

So I thought I’d take the time to run through three reasons why we should make that effort.

Reason # 1 — We Need Feedback to Improve & Grow

While it’s possible for each of us to act as our own critic, there’s simply no substitute for having outsiders engage with and respond to our work.

We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve. — Bill Gates

For example, sometimes we think we are being clear in our message only to realize that it’s clunky in ways we didn’t catch.

If you’ve ever written something in a flash, took a day or more break from it, and then come back to realize that it was a hurried mess, then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The act of taking a break distanced you from your work, and you were able to see it a bit more objectively.

Well, other people are like that, times a hundred.

Their reaction is a clue as to whether our train of thought was expressed clearly, or if it jumped all over the place and missed out on providing its intended value.

Anyone interested in improvement should be open to hearing well-reasoned critiques of their work (unfortunately, so many critiques are not well-reasoned, but more on that later).

Put another way, we grow in proportion to the degree that we are capable of admitting that we still have faults that need to be worked on.

Other people can help with pointing out those faults — as painful as it may be.

We just need to take care to discern when someone’s critique is valid, versus when someone is trolling or attacking us with unnecessary negativity.

Reason #2 — No Feedback Is the Worst Kind of Feedback

If our goal is to provide value to our audience and maybe even get paid for what we do someday, then we need to care about what sort of reactions our work is triggering in others.

Comments and feedback — aka opinions — are the only way to know how our work is affecting the people it comes into contact with.

But here’s the thing: people mostly comment on what provokes either a really positive or really negative reaction out of them.

A popular example is the recent Star Wars sequel trilogy.

Most people loved The Force Awakens, but The Last Jedi is really where people drew battle lines.

It’s no surprise then that The Last Jedi is probably still the most talked-about installment of the trilogy.

It provoked strong reactions out of people, which I think many creatives would readily admit as something they want their own work to do.

It’s when people have no reaction to our work that we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle.

No reaction means our work is still dwelling somewhere in the land of mediocrity, either by playing it safe, failing to entertain/provide value, etc.

But no one should be devastated if this is the case.

After all, out of the 311 (and counting) blog posts I’ve published thus far, none have gone viral, and very few of them have even one response.

What this tells me is that I still have a lot of room left to improve my writing game, even if I can “blame” some of it on the luck of the internet draw.

At this point, however, I prefer to believe that the impetus is on me to provide more value for my readers and to not make excuses for why I haven’t seemed to be capable of doing that yet.

The point I’m trying to make, however, is this: the only alternative to hearing others’ opinions of our work (whether they be positive or negative) is a silent audience, and who really wants that?

Reason #3 — If We Eventually Want to Make a Larger Impact, Some Degree of Social Validation Is Necessary

While in the beginning stages of any creative journey it’s always best to learn how to enjoy the process for its own sake, many of us also want to make a larger impact on the world — if we’re permitted.

To do that, however, some degree of social validation is necessary.

… creativity cannot be understood by looking only at the people who appear to make it happen. Just as the sound of a tree crashing in the forest is unheard if nobody is there to hear it, so creative ideas vanish unless there is a receptive audience to record and implement them. And without the assessment of competent outsiders, there is no reliable way to decide whether the claims of a self-styled creative person are valid. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I learned this the hard way when I was forced to question my earlier I-only-want-to-rebel self.

I guess you could say that I sort of saw through the absurdity of non-conforming just to be a non-conformist. As other people have pointed out, that’s basically just a different way of conforming.

The truth is, of course, that every human being wants to feel accepted by at least one other human being, and most of us want to feel like we have a place in society at large as well.

So while it’s fine to create work for ourselves in the beginning, I think that any aspiring creative should feel unashamed in admitting that they want their work to find a broader audience eventually.

We can debate all day what a “competent outsider” is from Mihaly’s quote above, but for the sake of keeping things simple, I’ll stick to just the blogging world.

When I think about what a blog is, I don’t try to inflate it into something grand.

I see a blog as a place to share the knowledge I’m exploring with others and to help them learn and grow along with me.

It’s a place for self-reflection, sharing knowledge and wisdom, and being unafraid of updating my worldview when and if I find it is in need of updating.

From this perspective, anyone who comments is a “competent outsider,” as I’m not trying to revolutionize, say, theoretical physics.

I’m just trying to make an impact on whoever stumbles in here.

That’s why feedback is so critical, and why anyone in the same boat as me shouldn’t run away from hearing others’ opinions of their work.

Feedback is eventually what we want — we just have to embrace hearing critiques along with praise, and not let either type of comment go to our heads.

This doesn’t mean we have to be enslaved to the desire to have our work socially validated.

Honesty and authenticity are still more important than performative displays for the crowd.

But, interestingly enough, being honest enough to risk upsetting people is also the same way that we attract an audience that’s genuinely interested in what we have to say.

To Sum It All Up

Should other people’s opinions matter to the lone creative trying to produce work that impacts the world?

The answer is, of course, yes — to a certain degree.

Other people’s opinions shouldn’t determine how we view our work in the long run, but we should learn enough from them so that we can keep improving.

Silence, in many ways, is the worst form of feedback, as it reveals to us that our work isn’t yet making an impact or provoking strong reactions out of people.

We should also feel comfortable admitting that making an impact and receiving social validation is, in many ways, the same thing.

Rather than run away from people praising or critiquing our work (and sometimes they can do both), we should embrace it as a necessary element of the process.

Other people are indeed the mirror that is held up to us and our work.

Sometimes the image we see makes us uncomfortable.

But that’s okay, so long as we are willing to learn something and keep on chugging along.