This year I made an “experiment”. 
I wanted to know from some people if I had some issues to fix, both technical and non technical, so I sent out a small survey to ask them for help and an honest question.

Not all of them answered but some did and their answer was not what I was expecting.
I first felt nervous because whenever you get some critics comments you are always caught a little bit off guard, even though you asked for them.

Then I detached a little bit and thought about what they were saying to me to understand what could I improve.

Now, here’s the thing: When someone is discussing about _you_ there’s no way you can easily shut down the instinct to say “No, I’m not like that”.
If someone comes to you and have something to argue about what you’re doing or how you’re doing your work it’s hard.

It’s hard to accept that even if that person is right.
My personal howto is to take some time and analyze it by removing all the personal bias from it.

If I’m thinking “He’s saying this to me because _he/she_ doesn’t understand bla bla bla” I’m trying to lower the value of their judgement.
It might help your ego, but it doesn’t help you understanding if they’re giving you a chance to improve or not.

Remove the bias, remove all the judgement coming from your past experience with them. Even if they have some bias they might still sharing you this issue _because_ you don’t know how to communicate it.