No matter what we do going through life, we are faced with criticism. Our parents give us criticism about how we do the dishes or how we load the dishwasher. Our teachers criticize us in the form of grades and how we choose to write our papers. Our boss criticizes us for how we do our work. Our wife criticizes us on how we do the dishes, or how we fold the towels. Our friends criticize us in all the different things that we do together.
We criticize other people just as much as they criticize us. Yet for some reason we want to avoid that criticism. Why does criticism seem to be such a point of contention? How can we avoid the pain of being criticized?
With all the criticism, you would think we would be used to it? Yet we get indignant over the point that people are making judgments about us. We have people acting like someone set their hair on fire because they got criticized about something.
What is criticism?
It is good to go ahead and establish what do we mean when we say criticism.
Definition
the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes.
“he received a lot of criticism”
And
the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work.
“alternative methods of criticism supported by well-developed literary theories”
The first definition is what everyone gets worked up about. They instantly turn to assume the criticism is about them. The first definition boils down to a thought. You perceive that people are talking about faults. And while we can find people who use criticism as a tool to tear others down that is often not the case. Even if the criticizer is trying to tear you down first. You have to agree with what they are saying for it to have any impact.
Criticism is just someone pointing out your blind spots they aren’t bad terrible or degrading unless you make them so.
Why do we avoid criticism?
The biggest reason is because we believe that the comments being made are a reflection of how bad and unworthy we are to be in that group. Again you have to agree with a thought for it to have any impact on you, So if you don’t believe that a problem other people see is actually a problem then it will not affect you the same way.
We hate being seen as inadequate or that we have done a bad job at something. So we instantly take criticism as something bad. We reluctantly ask for the information that can make us better, or ask those who will just give us blindfolded affirmations. Often these criticisms are the very pieces of information that we need to step up to the next level. It harkens back to the belief that discomfort is the currency for your dreams.
Many times people who are trying to help will give criticism to us without our asking. Often they are trying to help. Yes, there are those people who do provide criticism as a means to try to discourage us from making progress. However, why would you want to give them that power to affect you in that way?
Return the victimhood
When we agree with the thoughts that our idea or product will not fly then we often draw into a victim mindset and want to throw that victimhood right back at the person who suggests that we rethink what we were going to do.
Does this actually help or hurt our dream? We disconnect from the relationship when we fall into the victim mindset. We often end up retaliating against those wanting to help as we refuse the help and often damage the relationship because we don’t want to hear that our baby is ugly.
Yet there are times that we need to hear that unpleasant news. We need to see the holes in our boat before we put it in the water. Yet when you turn to play the victim you will not get those important pieces of info.
Why are you agreeing with them?
Yet again I ask. if what they said is leading to you getting angry and upset. then why are you agreeing with them? Your thoughts create your emotions. What is the thought that you are having that is causing you to go nuclear as you are? If you truly didn’t agree with them you wouldn’t react as you do. This is why when you are joking around and you call your friend a name they don’t react to it. They don’t believe it.
So why do you agree with what the criticizer says? I can’t answer that. That answer is solely on your shoulders. You can change your thoughts of the circumstance and find a better thought to believe. I will share some of those better thoughts a little later in this post.
However, if you want to have a more fulfilled life you can’t let the haters get to you. You can’t let a little comment that is meant to help you completely derail your plans.
How do you overcome criticism?
To stop letting something as small as a vibration of air disrupt you and your plans for your happiness the first this you might want to do is a thought download. Look into yourself and see why you are reactive to those words. What are you making their criticism mean to you? Why are you agreeing with what they are saying? Examine your thoughts and you will see what the thought error truly is and you can then start to change it.
What are you making that criticism mean?
Sadly many of us make criticism mean that we are worthless, ineffective, and not contributing to the community. Sadly we agree with that thought. We want to tell ourselves that very thing yet someone beat us to the punch. So why are you so hard on yourself? Why do you think you are worthless?
When you learn what it is that causes you to react you find the key that allows you to control your own emotions. Suddenly emotions are what you turn on and off. Not the world around you. You claim your autonomy and people can try to piss you off and they will fail. Hank to the point that you can handle criticism.
What criticism is really
Now as I said earlier your feelings come from your thoughts. These thoughts are often along the lines of you agreeing with the criticizer, or they getting too close to a shame you are desperately trying to hide.
What not use a different thought for your criticism that may just help you with embracing the suggestion someone gave you or at least not giving your emotional control over to someone else?
An Opportunity to get better
When you stop playing the victim and you start seeing criticism as a path to getting better you can start looking forward to criticism, any criticism. You start to understand that it doesn’t matter if the criticism is meant as a means to build up or tear down any criticism can be good if you choose it to be good. You can see the benefits in even the vilest attempts at tearing you down have nuggets of truth and can help you gain more value and insight as to where you need to be in your pursuits of fulfillment.
Because of the critic’s words you become better because you choose to see the words as positive responses and you act on the words that serve you
A way to find out what is actually valuable
How do you tell if something is valuable or not? Look at the old King Solomon story of the two mothers. This is where two mothers each had a child. Then one child died and so that mom stole the child of the other mother. They were fighting over it and decided to take their case to King Solomon. Here Solomon suggested they cut the child in two and give each mother a half of the child. One mom agreed while the other mother said no don’t do that she will give up the child. Solomon then knew who the real mother was.
Who really valued the child? You can see from the criticism that what people value about your idea or project. If a person really cares about you, they will share their thoughts on what they like so that it becomes better.
If someone is trying to tear you down they will also comment on the more important aspects that are good. They will want to tear down the good parts of your idea. Often because they are uncomfortable with the fact that you are doing what they want to do but haven’t taken the steps to do so. So they will tear down the more important aspects of your project.
It removes the trash
When smelting metal you have to heat the metal up so that it melts after it melts the impurities will rise to the top in the formof slag. You can then remove the impurities from the metal and that metal becomes better. Criticism is a lot like that. It helps you clear up your thinking and how you are limiting yourself. IF someone criticizes you and you are ok with it. Your thoughts about your idea are clear. Yet, if you struggle with the idea you know you have some junk in your thinking. YOu need to remove it to be able to go as far as you want.
It helps you grow because praise is easy
As mentioned before discomfort is the currency for your dreams. Therefore if you want to achieve your aspirations then one way to get uncomfortable is to ask people for their critiques. Let them pick it apart. When doing so you remove the trash from your idea and you get the better product. Your friends and family get the pleasure of helping you. You get stronger all around.
Another way to use this is even harder as your haters for their thoughts. Can you handle that fire? You know they will work hard to tear down that idea in hopes that it makes you miserable.
Your idea is good cause people are trying to tear them down
When you have a great idea if you get people coming out of the woodwork trying to tear you down you can guess you have a good idea. This is in part with the Crab bucket analogy and the tall poppy syndrome.
People don’t like to have their perceived failures shown. They see you questing for your fulfillment and this bring up the thoughts that they are doing nothing or that they simply gave up. Much as you don’t like criticism they see your actions to get stuff done as criticism on their life. They Judge themselves for their own failures and attack you because they want to blame you for their shortcoming and not their proclivity to give up so easily.
Haters are your greatest assets
As mentioned before you have haters and they will do anything to tear you down, but you have the power to choose if their attempts to attack you are going to hurt or help you. If you are grateful for their input you rob them of their power to hurt you. They want to believe that your pain comes from them when in reality it comes from you agreeing with them. So do you want your life to go smoothly or do you want to have the best life possible? Do you want to have relationships that push you to be better or just a roommate? All of these are from your critics and the worst critic is actually yourself.
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