Why do I only focus on the one bad comment in a review?

The review is mostly positive, page after page of it, and yet all of it disappears behind the single negative line. That is where your attention goes, and where it stays. It can feel like the one criticism is the honest part and the praise is just politeness. But that feeling is not a fact. It is a habit of mind. The brain is wired to weight threat more heavily than reassurance, so a criticism naturally shouts while praise whispers. That is normal. What is worth questioning is the belief underneath, that the negative is the truth and the positive is noise. In reality both are data. Nine good notes and one hard one means you are doing well and have one thing to work on. That is a good report, not a bad one. Try reading the feedback again and, this time, let the positive count as real. Write down the good notes and sit with them for as long as you sat with the criticism. Give them equal weight on purpose. You are correcting a lopsided scale. The one hard note deserves your attention, but it does not deserve all of it.