When someone gives you feedback, notice if you’re already writing your defense in your head. Close that draft and just listen.

Defence assembles itself automatically, often before the other sentence has finished. Once that starts, you stop taking anything in and begin scanning for the part you can dispute, and you leave with your case intact and nothing learned. It is fast and it feels like thinking. It is closer to shielding.

Catch the moment it begins and set the draft down rather than arguing with yourself about it. Ask one clarifying question instead, which buys time and forces listening. You can still disagree afterward, once you have actually heard the whole thing.