Using Feedback to succeed in Physiotherapy

As humans in modern society, our instinct to negative feedback is to adopt a defensive mindset - and become almost reactive or protective about our missteps. We perceive negativity and poor critique as threatening to our very make up as a person! Our reptilian brains kick in…we respond with a fight or flight response, shrugging off what should be our golden ticket to get better.

Feedback is an important piece of modern working life and the physiotherapy profession; however - we often do not see it as such. As physiotherapists looking to learn and grow, we need to understand the immense benefit of being able to be called out for any shortfall in our efforts, or where we can improve. Feedback should not be seen as a personal attack – but a constructive way to learn and develop in our physiotherapy career.

During our careers as physiotherapists, we are going to face a lot of ups and downs. This is normal. This is part of the process of finding where we can really succeed and impact others as physios. We will try - we will fail occasionally - we will succeed sometimes, and we will experience. It is simply the path of life. Examples include a sub-optimal recovery outcome for a patient, a failed attempt in a job interview, or a failed research submission. Failures will come – expect them but learn from these experiences in your journey as a physio so that they don’t repeat themselves. Use these moments to learn from yourself and others and get better prepared for the next opportunity.

The first thing we need to understand is that the measure of success and failure is true only to the eye of the beholder. Our mind guides our perception as to what it means to achieve, and what it means to fail as a physiotherapist. According to the stoic Seneca - “We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality”. Understanding this is the first key to improving how you operate on a day-to-day basis. If we can frame failure as a learning opportunity in our reality…a big chance to grow…we almost give ourselves a superpower. 

As the late professional basketball player Kobe Bryant once said about losing — “I love it, it is exciting, there are answers there, you just gotta look at them. You find things that you could have done better, you find things that worked, and you try to understand how to do them again”.

Ray Dalio’s influential and ground-breaking book ‘Principles’ details what has profoundly shaped the way we as learning physiotherapists think. Dalio identifies a 5-step process of setting ambitious goals, encountering problems along the way, diagnosing the root cause, designing a plan to overcome these setbacks – and then doing the required tasks (see graphic below from ‘Principles’).

The question is how this applies to feedback for us as physiotherapists. When we enter the diagnosis phase, and we have experienced pain, stress, and adversity. We failed in our effort to achieve. We have fallen in our efforts to hit our targets or goals. As tough and as challenging as this is, it is also an area of opportunity…the chance to learn and grow. When we have the possibility of gaining feedback on our efforts, we should perceive this as a cheat guide to addressing our failings, thereby refocusing our process. 

Seeking feedback is not easy. It hurts when it is negative. Taking it on board - and altering the way we do things is a tough ask. It is important to note that it questions our current competence, not our character as a physiotherapist - be that sports physiotherapist or another professional type. We are the same unique individual we were before we failed - we are still the same person. But - now we can grow as a physio. 

Three steps to using feedback today for physiotherapists:

1. Frame your failure with regards to the bigger picture in your physiotherapy career, cultivating a growth mindset approach to the negatives.
2. Approach physiotherapists who you admire and respect as feedback advisors.
3. Use the information objectively, no matter how painful to shape your response and next efforts.

Actively seek feedback from physiotherapists you admire. The insights you will gather will strengthen your efforts going forward. Akin to healing a weakened tendon or ligament through optimally managing load and strain we can adapt and come back stronger with feedback. We need to reflect on the feedback, learn from it and bounce back. Something for us as learning physiotherapists to always remember - as Ray Dalio proclaims… “Pain + Reflection = Progress”.