How I Overcame Fear of Criticism
Sensitivity stifles growth
I don’t know a single creative who enjoys being criticized. Whether it's constructive or condemning, creators dislike the feeling of their hard work, emotions, or expressions being minimized or disliked. This is a natural reaction — dare I say it’s even the default for most people. Maybe we’ve shared some of our work that wasn’t very well received, wrote a report that didn’t perform to class standard, or even got our work ignored by those we showed it to. There are dozens of reasons we choose to avoid criticism. Sometimes, it's simply the result of us being in our own head, projecting our own self doubt onto other people!
Regardless of the reason, I don’t believe creatives are able to improve if we live our lives allergic to the opinions or thoughts of others. There are a few things I personally implemented in order to try and overcome that mental barrier, which has since helped me improve exponentially.
Identifying the Criticism
First, I’d like to distinguish the two types of criticism we run into:
Constructive
And Unconstructive
I actually think it's best to look at how I handle unconstructive criticism first, as that tends to be the hardest to receive. We tend to get defensive very easily, as regardless of if someone has a particular reason for disliking our creation, it still hurts. We classify unconstructive criticism as criticism that doesn’t have a proper explanation or is given with mainly the intent to simply tear down instead of instructing. It's been told to me before that I should “ignore” this type of criticism. Meanwhile, my feelings tell me that the tearing down means my work isn’t good.
The way I view it is neither of those. Instead, I try to ask myself the question:
“What is the core issue that they have?”
It’s important to consider that regardless of how crass or disrespectful the critique is, it is often a poorly expressed explanation of a true issue. What I mean is, to a certain extent, the criticism is probably right. Does it justify a belittling of your creative process? No. Absolutely not. And that isn’t the intent of this section. However, the focus should be on removing the emotion attached to the work.
By doing this, it allows me to really think about if someone was right. If there was an issue, then the next step would be for me to acknowledge it and fix it. I believe that if we take all unconstructive criticism and throw it away, we miss an opportunity to improve.
So, I remove emotion.
This is the exact same way I deal with helpful or kind criticism, its just easier now. These are usually well thought out, and people will often give you a reason or at least their opinion on why, whereas with unconstructive criticism, you need to find that why yourself.
Even in these contexts, I try and remove emotion. I listen to their opinion, and then think about it on my own for however long I need to. After that, I allow myself to draw my own conclusion on whether or not their opinion will make my story better.
Taste Vs. Criticism
It's hard to tell when someone gives you a piece of criticism if it's just their opinion, or if their analysis holds some weight to it. I suggest that over time, after you get used to receiving critique, you expand the people you ask for help. The more people you get feedback from, the more you’re able to improve your writing. If a single person doesn’t like a particular character, but nine others do, then you can reasonably assume that the first person simply has a different taste in characters. That would be impossible to know if you only asked the first person.
Simple, Yet Challenging
The thing that helped me overcome this fear might not help you. After all, “removing emotion” is easy to say and hard to do. In fact, you can never truly rid yourself of all emotion if receiving critique hurts in the first place. What I mean by the phrase is to analyze objectively. Go as slow as you need to, and take as much time as you deem necessary. But always be open to the idea of being wrong, and the idea that someone else could help you see something you couldn’t have seen on your own.
As per usual, this isn’t something that has ONE right answer. This is simply how I personally overcame this fear. Do YOU have any other ways that you think could help others? Leave a comment! Let’s help each other grow!
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