I'm curious if one can inoculate oneself against this at all? I follow a pattern of proactively trying to solicit critical feedback from coding peers as well a

I'm curious if one can inoculate oneself against this at all? I follow a pattern of proactively trying to solicit critical feedback from coding peers as well as management. I've found this is a little unique, I think most people like the "no news is good news" model better. I've found that often I have to dig hard to get people to give me some areas to improve upon. When I ask the "so where do I make changes to make me better", I often get a lot of compliments, I think because people are often uncomfortable sharing critical observations. I listen patiently and thank them, but then try to persist for areas of improvement. Giving people a day or two warning (I thought this might improve the process) just seems to amplify that effect. But after all that, I wonder if I'm just "getting out ahead" of the DK effect by controlling its uncomfortable truths before they hit hard, in a subliminal effort to preserve my mediocrity.