Everyone has an opinion, but sometimes you wish people would keep theirs to themselves. Criticism is painful. It’s difficult not to get worn down by other people’s unfavorable thoughts, no matter how thick your skin is. You can spend weeks, months, or even years becoming the best at what you do, and it all seems to come crashing down when one person misinterprets your priorities and mocks your intentions.
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It irritates, frustrates, and perplexes you. It makes you want to quit. But it is what the critics anticipate from you. They want you to leave, which leaves you with just one option: outwit the critics. You can spend weeks, months, or even years becoming the best at what you do, and it all seems to come crashing down when one person misinterprets your priorities and mocks your intentions. Instead of fleeing, you must alter your perspective on criticism. You must reframe the unfavorable comments in your favor.
Here are some guidelines to follow to benefit from criticism and grow to your full potential.
1: Understand The Source
People criticize for a variety of reasons. Trying to incorporate everyone’s two pennies’ worth would be as futile as the father’s attempts to please everyone in the tale of the man, the son, and the donkey. It is critical to go through criticisms and determine which ones merit attention. One simple method is to ask yourself a few questions. Is this person familiar with me? Is this person qualified to make a decision? And, more importantly, do I need to get along with this person—perhaps you’re boss?
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If you responded yes to any of these questions, the critique is probably worth hearing.
2: Maintain a Balanced Perspective
Once you’ve decided to pay heed to the critique, it’s critical to keep it in context with the whole scenario. Instead of focusing on what went wrong and even beating yourself up about it, balance your perspective by examining what went well. What were the inner and outer resources that contributed to the positive outcome? Can you use them again and again? Rather than allowing criticism to fill your attention and bring you down, this balanced approach will cushion you with your strengths and fuel you with optimism to bring about change in the areas you need to improve.
3: Choose Between Winning and Learning
This can be difficult, especially for those of us who rely on the opinions of others to feel good about ourselves. It’s important to remember that no one is expected to be excellent at everything. However, we may all learn and grow in areas that are important to us.
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See if you can utilize the criticism to cultivate a Growth Mindset—the capacity to focus on the learning rather than the outcome, and to use it to gain from the experience rather than become trapped as a result of it.
4: Try not to take it personally.
This is much easier said than done! And this is especially true for women due to their stronger emotional circuitry in the brain. However, if you find yourself becoming overly sensitive to the feedback you’ve heard and thought about it incessantly, create emotional distance by picking up a pen and writing down the major lessons as factual bullet points. This assists in keeping the infant while removing the bathwater. And if you discover that the criticism is plainly not about you, but about the fears, concerns, or frustrations of others, Then, by establishing mental boundaries, concentrate on tuning out such advice (and such people).
If someone has a criticism, it implies they want to provide feedback on what you’re doing for them – this is an opportunity to learn more about the person you’re working for and how to turn them into a satisfied customer or audience member. Take a minute to consider what they’re saying before responding – in business, dealing with someone patient and able to absorb and act on criticism means that both sides can work toward a better conclusion. The better you get at dealing with criticism, the better you’ll get at dealing with the critical voice in your head. Because we’ve all got it. And those of us who thrive in life have learned to heed it when necessary and to let it wash off like
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