When you're a writer, you hear your internal critic, and that's really hard to get over. And then sometimes you hear critiques from classmates and stuff. But when a book comes out, it's just hundreds of opinions and you have to learn to separate out the ones you want to listen to or figure out many you want to listen to.
All writers learn this, in time: don't show your work to other people until it's safely finished. Even discussing your unborn book in quite general terms can be such an undermining experience that, afterwards, you give it up and go to live in Guatemala.
We are told to value ourselves without feedback, but if nobody is making a pass at you or trying to take you to Bermuda, how are you supposed to feel? Confident?
You don’t learn about yourself by being alone, you learn about yourself from other people.
It's part of improving every day, being willing to be receptive of the people who know and see things from the outside that you might not notice in the inside.
Of course I am doing a good job, but you can always improve, and I just leave it up to people outside, around me or whatever, to judge on that.
I don't read reviews. I haven't read them for probably 30 years. I can't. When they're bad, they're really rough, and when they're good, they're not good enough. You can always find something to stress over.
I tell young singers not to listen to themselves. What I hear is not what you hear.
Even if you need, and want, a second opinion, it can be dangerous to have people telling you what they think you ought to add, or cut, before you've even finished telling your story. One loses heart; one loses energy and interest. Or at least I do.
Never ask people about your work.
Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.
It's hard for me to know. I'll think, 'I really brought off my ideas, it's great,' and no one sparks to it
Everyone wants to be loved, generally. If you released a record and nobody said anything, if you didn't get any feedback from people you don't know, i.e. the press, you'd be sort of upset. To me, any press is good press.
I put a lot of pressure on myself. I tell my wife when she's listening to my songs that the slightest hint of whether she likes it or not puts the pressure on me.
When you've done something, certainly if you create a piece of music, you then hear it with fresh ears when you play it for somebody else.
It's hard for me to show work while I'm writing, because other people's comments will influence what happens.
External scouting is of limited value if it's not teamed with rigorous self- examination. Successful coaches or managers have learned the value of utilizing an outside opinion to give them a fresh look at their personnel. This unbiased view provides an even greater insight, which in turn helps the coach develop flexibility within the team.
Self-appraisals are influenced by evaluative reactions of others.
For many activities, people cannot rely solely on themselves in evaluating their ability level because such judgments require inferences from probabilistic indicants of talent about which they may have limited knowledge. Self-appraisals are, therefore, partly based on the opinions of others who presumably possess evaluative competence
I've stopped asking for criticism, even from friends, because I don't think anyone knows my little world of mega-thorough critical thinking/musical comic rambling better than I do.
When you're making a film, there are so many people involved that you get opinions and notes from people and you don't even know who they are. I find that quite difficult and it wears you down.
Accomplishment is socially judged by ill defined criteria so that one has to rely on others to find out how one is doing.
If you don't look at yourself and evaluate it, you instead see how the world's reacting to it.
One of the occupational hazards of being an actor, the reason why so many actors are insecure, is that the only way we know we're good is when other people tell us.
It's very important, at least for me and for Cynthia, to get outside input.
