The Power To Withstand Criticism

How do you feel when you are criticized? And how do you feel when you are given feedback about a mistake or shortcoming even when you have to agree the feedback is reasonable and was given sincerely in an effort to help you?

 Few people handle criticism well, whether the criticism is legitimate or not. Why is it that? Let's look at a real-world example:

Let's say you just gave a presentation to your team and the feedback you received was your presentation was "Okay, but not great." Let's assume this feedback upsets you and you can't get it out of your mind the rest of the day. Why is that? If you say, "Are you crazy? It's obvious why I was upset! I was upset because I wanted to nail the presentation and I clearly didn't."

But is that the real reason you got upset? No, it's not. 

You got upset because the criticism tapped into your already existing feelings of insecurity, lack of confidence and lack of self-esteem and self-worth. That's the cause of your "upset," not the criticism. Meaning, on some level, you agree with the criticism. You tell yourself "I should have prepared better, I should have done better."  Ironically, you take the criticism and begin to beat yourself up.

Otherwise, the criticism wouldn't really bother you.

It's not what someone else thinks or says to you that bothers you; it's what you think and what you say to yourself that bothers you.

How we react to criticism is a reflection of our level of self-acceptance, self-love and self-confidence. The lower it is, the more vulnerable we are to criticism.

If you want to deal with the cause of why you feel bad when criticized, deal with how you feel deep down about yourself. Because it's not really about what someone else says to you or what they think of you. Ultimately, our opinion is the only one that matters. Criticism has no inherent power to make you feel one way or the other.

Only you have that kind of power.

Alan Allard, Career Coach/Leadership Coach/Speaker

http://www.alanallard.com