On Handling Criticism
As humans, we are bound to face criticism. We will encounter them at work, or in our social circles. They will come from people we admire and people we detest. We will have them because we will make mistakes and others will want to help us, or because others have made mistakes and they feel insecure, or simply because we are doing something interesting and everyone else will have an opinion on it.
But no matter what we can’t navigate our lives without learning to handle criticism well. To be honest, we need a fair share of criticism to become better at what we do and find success.
The key to navigating criticism well is to accept it gracefully, separate helpful, actionable criticism from the chaff and let go of the rest.
Steps for handling criticism
- Accept gracefully
- Focus on why?
- Find actionable inputs
- Do great things
- Be open and prepared
1 — Accept Gracefully
We often get defensive while we are being criticized. Criticism of our work feels to us like a criticism of our identities. Sometimes, the criticism can be delivered in this fashion too. But no matter what we must always calm ourselves before responding to criticism. Never ever respond in anger.
Rather than being guarded and defensive, we must try to be calm, open and accepting of other people’s opinion. We must share the rationale behind our ideas calmly and acknowledge others’ valid points, and finally thank them for their feedback in the end.
But if we cannot be graceful in the heat of the moment, we must remain silent.
2 — Focus on why?
We must focus on “Why” while receiving criticism as well as while analyzing it later. Not all criticisms are equal. Some of our critics really want to help us improve and while others simply want to massage their own ego. Knowing why we are being criticized may not only help us accept the criticism gracefully but also ascertain what we take from it.
We must ask internally why is the person criticizing us?
- Does she truly want to me to succeed and has my best interest in mind?
- Is she having a bad day at work?
- Is there a good reason for criticism?
3 — Find Actionable Inputs
Criticisms are rarely delivered well. It needs an immense amount of clarity to delivery a perfect criticism. But this does not mean imperfect criticisms are complete rubbish. It is up to us to decipher what is valuable in a criticism. We must accept that we sometimes may be flawed at our work and we can take feedback from others and improve. This doesn’t mean we are incapable but only that we are learning and evolving.
We must accept and incorporate inputs that we may act upon and let go of the ones that we cannot control.
4 — Do great things
Criticism is a comment on our products and not our potential. Our capabilities are fluid and evolving. Understand that people are criticizing us because we are doing something worthy of criticism. We must not let someone’s harsh remark stray us from our path of doing amazing things. We must accept feedback, and incorporate it but we must not let it stop us from becoming great and doing awesome things.
5 — Be Open and Prepared
We are often hurt the most by criticism when we are not prepared to accept it. We must have put in a lot of effort, and we want others to acknowledge us or even commend us on the hard work that we have done. Ideally, they should. But we can only be in charge of ourselves, and we cannot mold others to our expectations. In the light of this realization, we must always be ready for criticism when we are presenting our work. No matter how perfect we think our work is we must say to ourselves,
“I have put in my everything to get my work to this stage, and now I am opening it for others so they may contribute to it. Their eyes may notice what my eyes may have missed. My greatness from here on does not lie in protecting my work from others’ remarks but in finding a few inputs in the swarm of comments that may truly help me take it to the next level.”
Dealing with criticism is not easy. In fact, it is very hard. Personally, I cannot even sleep well once I am dealt with harsh criticism. It often triggers anxiety in me. But gracefully accepting criticism is an integral part of growing up and growing better.
