Receiving Feedback With a Growth Mindset

Your mindset is the set of beliefs you hold about whether your abilities can change. With a fixed mindset, people believe their skills are set, so feedback can feel like a judgement. With a growth mindset, people believe skills develop through effort, learning and support, so feedback becomes useful information. This lesson explains both. Key points: everyone moves between the two mindsets, a growth mindset can be practised, and the word yet is a simple tool for shifting your thinking.

Even people with a strong growth mindset can find feedback uncomfortable. This lesson explains why. Key points: feedback can trigger a stress response that makes us defensive; we may react to who is giving it or how it is delivered rather than what is said; we may hear it as being about who we are rather than what we did; and noticing these reactions is the first step to managing them. Feedback about a task is not a verdict on you as a person.

Receiving feedback well is a skill you can practise. This lesson gives a simple sequence to follow: pause and breathe, listen to understand, ask questions to clarify, thank the person, reflect on what is useful, and agree on one or two actions. Key points: you do not have to agree with everything, but you do need to understand it; asking for examples is helpful, not argumentative; it is fine to ask for time to think; and following up shows you took the feedback seriously.

Some of the most valuable feedback comes from the people we support and their families. This lesson looks at how to receive it and how to ask for feedback yourself. Key points: participants have the right to give feedback and make complaints without fear of negative consequences; stay calm and thank them, even if the feedback is hard to hear; pass it on to your team leader so it can be recorded and acted on; ask regularly how supports are going; and use supervision to ask your team leader for feedback on your growth.

Feedback only helps if something changes afterwards. This lesson shows how to turn feedback into a simple action plan you can actually follow. It explains how to work out what the feedback is really about, describe what good looks like, choose one or two specific actions, identify who can help and set a realistic timeframe. It compares vague intentions with specific actions, and shows how to check your progress and share it with your team leader. Key points: keep it small and specific, ask for help, and review how you are going.

Supervision and reflective practice are two of the most useful places to seek and use feedback. This lesson explains what supervision is for, including learning, reflection, wellbeing and planning, and how to prepare so you get the most from it. It introduces a simple reflection cycle you can use after any shift or incident: what happened, what you were thinking and feeling, what went well and what did not, and what you will do next time. Key points: supervision is a two way conversation, bring real examples, and reflect regularly, not only when something goes wrong.

This case study follows Kofi, a new support worker, at his first formal check in with his team leader. He hears that his case notes are too brief and that a participant has said he sometimes rushes her. Kofi's first reaction is to defend himself, but he uses the skills from this course to pause, ask questions and build a simple action plan. The lesson shows what that plan looks like and how it turns out. Key points: notice the urge to defend, ask for examples, focus on one or two actions, and review progress together.

This case study follows Hana, an aged care worker, who is told that a resident's daughter has complained that Hana did not help her mother shower. Hana's notes show she offered and the resident declined. The lesson shows how Hana manages her frustration, shares the facts calmly, and still looks for the useful part of the feedback, which is about keeping the family informed. Key points: you do not have to agree with all feedback, share missing facts calmly, keep good records, and look for what you can learn even when feedback is partly wrong.