Handling criticism

Whatever you ought to do in life, someone will always judge you for it. You need to respond to criticism in an open, nondefensive and clear way without being harsh and without shutting others out.

You need to know when to ask questions and when to set limits. Criticism can be hurting and demoralising sometimes yet to some degree holds an element of truth and honesty that when seriously considered it can sharpen us to do better.

Positively handling criticism develops noticeable selfimprovements whilst handling criticism in a negative way lowers your self-confidence, builds aggression, stress and anger.

Identify the positive side of criticism, take the opportunity, use it to your advantage, and build a stronger you.

Handling criticism in a negative way destroys self-confidence leading to the build-up of continuous cycles of unnecessary hardships and suffering. Criticism can also provide a positive feedback that is so valuable towards accelerating the rate of your successes.

Effective ways to handle criticism 

Listen 

Take your time to listen carefully to what the ether person is trying to say. Avoid interrupting them and jumping into conclusions. Practice active listen skills and be a proactive listener.

Understand the intention of the speaker. Is it constructive or destructive criticism? If the criticism is constructive then it is meant to help you build up and improve on your weaknesses but if it is destructive, it is intended to cause hurt, pain and destruction. It’s very important to understand the intentions of the speaker.

Ask questions

 Asking questions will help you understand the other person better. Questions help avoid misunderstandings along a smooth flowing conversation 

Use open ended questions which are not limited to specific behaviours, attitude and reactions. Understand their feedback about your performance, asking suggestions on how you can improve, on how you can be different. Listen to their side.

Stay calm and rational 

Avoid unnecessary reactions that will make you regret later.it is much better to delay by a minute, by an hour, by a day than rushing towards destruction.

Give thought to the speaker’s inputs, get past the emotion and wait until you get calm. Gather yourself enough positive energy, it is this energy that will build you a positive attitude which will help you stay positive.

Don’t take it personally 

Smile through and it will help you relax. 

Avoid getting defensive 

Being defensive will not allow the other person to have enough time to lay down their true perspective, it will not give them a chance to express their thoughts.

Give them a fair chance to express themselves and you might get surprised to find them reasonable.

Accept that you are not perfect

Everybody has flaws and no one is perfect. If you think that you are perfect then you will not be a position to listen to others when they speak, you will not have a clear chance to hear them out.

Constructive criticism helps open new perspectives giving you the opportunity to improve, and learn various ways of finding and choosing peace over conflict. Learning to deal with criticism the right way increases the level of your selfconfidence and develop a stronger you. Confident people are not worried about being judged or criticised because they know how to effectively handle it.