If you’ve had a poor experience with something — say a restaurant, book or salon visit — take a minute before leaving a negative review. Is it worth it?
On our post about writing creators thank-you notes over Christmas, a reader offered this great bit of advice:
One piece of advice I got that I practice is that whenever you feel compelled to leave a complaint or a negative review about something, take the time to leave a positive [re]view for something else.
Two reasons, negativity tends to dominate sometimes, people are more motivated to speak up more when they are displeased, so it helps even things out. Secondly, it helps your own mental well-being. Makes you less likely to dwell on the negativity.
It’s a bit of a twist on that classic advice, if you don’t have anything nice to say… write something nice about something else instead. It’ll be better for your mental health not to stew in negativity, and it will help something you do like surface in algorithms.
This isn’t to suggest you disregard all bad behaviour or poor service — sometimes the waiter really is being discriminatory, or the service isn’t what the business claimed it would be. But if you have a one-off bad experience, take a moment, and then consider leaving a positive review on something you do like. You’ll feel a little bit better.
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