“CARRY OUT CRITICISM AND SELF-CRITICISM STRICTLY”

The title of this post is taken from the will of President Ho Chi Minh, former Leader of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It’s written down in a notebook full of lines I’ve collected over the years.

Criticism and especially self-criticism is something I have done and do daily. It used to be a negative thing though, a confidence-sapper. Self-criticism especially, became this portal into a world of poisonous nostalgia where I’d regularly visit and lash myself with past mistakes.

If only I’d done this or said something else, maybe I could have asked that or just what the shit were you thinking — basically, you guy… messed up. If I’d had a bad day or was in a crap situation I’d go back through that portal and pull out the moment where it all went wrong.

So when I read the line “carry out criticism and self-criticism strictly” on the wall in Ho Chi Minh museum, Hanoi, I figured the old beardy Communist was definitely handing out duff advice. I knew to criticise and self-criticise as a negative place and difficult to exit, and that to hang out in the carefree, kick-back club (if you could) was much better.

But then I thought about the word ‘strictly’ and what he might have meant. I started to think of it as criticism with a focus, a positive outlook, to look back on what’s gone wrong and move into the next moments to make it right. To face up and not dwell on the crap situation, figure out why it happened, how to nail it the next time and cut it loose.

As a Copywriter I used this to get back to basics. I’d experienced a couple of situations in my mid-twenties where minor mistakes had been published and important emails were fired out rushed and containing errors. My new ‘strictly’ approach sent me back to the good English and grammar books.

Quickly, I’d cleaned up my copy from level one using criticism and self-criticism. The old where it all went wrong drifted off and I could see the progress in my creative work happen in front of me; my career advanced like I’d hoped it would and inevitably other cool stuff did too.

In hindsight, it’s a good to be naturally critical but only if you do it right.