In an enterpreneurship class, one of the invited lecturers gave an advice for succeeding in business. It sounded disturbing back then because it was "No emotions, neither positive or negative". This was the ultimate recommendation from that speaker. It made me somewhat sad (am I a robot to not have emotions?!).
Nowadays, going through the PhD, in particular, I started appreciating this message as never before. Indeed, separating yourself from the job can become a life savior, especially when work load and level of responsibility become seemingly unbearable. The secret is to be both inside and far outside of what you are doing.
Such duality of mind implies that while performing you are always keeping a whole picture in mind, avoiding tunnel vision. In contrary, if you are emotionally invested in the process you care about your comfort, which makes you vulnerable and distracted. Any criticism in this case is perceived as a judgement occupying your mind for much longer than necessary and with no creative outcome. This happens due to your mind trying to not solve the problem indicated by the criticising person in the most efficient way, but to soothe yourself and recover unstable self-esteem.
At the same time, an active reaction to the external positive reinforcements can be an indicator of self-worth problems. It shows you that you measure yourself in the units of praise, while all the achievements should come from the internal knowledge that they belong to you, sooner or later.
With no emotional attachment to the business, you have an advantage of the most optimally operating brain and you avoid dependency on the mere concept of self-esteem that makes you indestructible against the external factors.