How to deal with critics?
If I would ask you — Have you ever encountered an “idiot” person who tries to put you down? I’m pretty sure you would say Yes. If not, stop reading this.
Last week I was sick. It is so easy to forget how bad it is to feel sick, but it sucks. Either way, when I’m sick, my body knows when it wants bacon or an orange, sleep or water. Last week I felt that I really don’t want to stress. Of course it was that time - the time of Murphy’s law, so I got given a stress dose by this “idiot” guy.
By the way, right now I’m sitting in amazing park called Ashton Gardens. Since noon it has been really quiet, but now a middle aged couple came to sit across me and they started to make out like teenagers. I kinda like it.
Back to the “idiot” guy. If you’re in a business of doing something that changes things, it’s a setup for encountering “idiots”. They hate when something changes, it reminds them that their point of view is challenged.
The funny thing is that at least once a month, I hear some variation of a question about haters or generally negative people. For example, Seth Godin is the best-seller book author. He writes a lot of blog posts about this issue “How to deal with these critics?”. In the simplest form, Seth invites for action “Disable the comments”.
In addition, there is this guy named Casey Neistat. He is a new influential video blogger and his view is simple “Cut out all negative people from your life.” Harsh, but somehow feels right. I mean there is honesty, genuine comments to help you improve, but they always come from people who care about you.
Now the kissing couple came to sit behind me in the shadow, what a day. They are clearly smitten.
I doubt that there will ever be “the best way” to deal with these kind of people. At the heart it is your own self-talk, that drives the reaction to those comments. This self-talk is written in your neural networks as a script from the past. They call it schema. It is a learned reaction to help you deal in situations with idiots.
Some people will have schema where they will try to secretly empathize with the “idiot” person. To understand him and his reason, because they don't want to be hated.
Even if they don’t agree with him, they will start to ask themselves — “What if he is right” or think “I need to change his negative reaction and change him so he understands me”. Is it really worth it?
Don’t let them in. If they knock on the door and they offer you their critic, say No — don’t try to argue, for them, that’s a message to come in.
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