On Taking Criticism

Criticism is a word we are all too familiar with, having been on the receiving end too many times to count. It could be our parents telling us that they were so much better than us when they were our age, our superiors telling us to pick up our game or face dire consequences, the boss who picks out faults no matter how hard we work and threatens not to promote us, the mother-in-law who thinks no girl could ever be good enough for her precious son, the spouse or partner who blames us for the failed relationship. The list is endless.

We don't care for it. Not even a tiny bit. After all, who would like to hear non flattering things being said about themselves? (Even if they had some truth in them. Only some truth, mind it. :-P) In his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie writes that all of us crave appreciation. It is a basic human need, like the need for food, water and air. No matter how much we claim to be thick skinned and aloof, criticism always stings. The severity of the sting, however, varies from person to person. And even a little appreciation acts like a soothing balm on our bruised ego.

The moment we encounter criticism, we instinctively get defensive. How dare anyone criticize us? Isn't it said that before one points a finger at others, they should point it at themselves first? I follow this, so why can't everyone else?! These are the questions that immediately come to mind. However, after we cool down a bit and replay the entire event in our head at least ten times, we come up with some questions that are more difficult to answer. Why am I being criticized? Is the criticism genuine? Should I pay it any heed? Will it really help me or is it just aimed at bringing me down? Should I take the criticism lying down or lash out at the person meting it out? Let me attempt to answer at least some of these questions.

Believe it or not, there is something known as positive or constructive criticism. It comes from our well wishers, people close to us like our parents and friends. This type of criticism stings more than usual because we think that these are the people who are supposed to love us unconditionally. When they criticize us, we feel betrayed. However, in this case, heeding the criticism may do us a lot of good. This is because these people have known us for a long time. They know how we operate. What they tell us is for our own improvement. So, even though we may be hurt and indignant at first, we should try understand why they said what they said and take corrective measures. If it is due to some negligence on our part, then we would do well to be more careful in future. Why to give anyone an opportunity to tell us off? We can avoid such criticism by being alert and mindful of what we do.

Now comes the case of unfair criticism. The kind which instills in us a sense of being wronged, which makes our blood boil and sometimes even makes us want to cause bodily harm to the perpetrators. Take the example of being unfairly criticized by our boss. Our mind tries to make us feel better by showing us one revenge fantasy after another. These fantasies are mostly inspired by movies like Horrible Bosses and Wanted. Remember that scene where James McAvoy hits one of his colleagues with a  keyboard so hard that some keys fly off? These keys form the two words (which begin with F and Y) that express his thoughts about the colleague exactly. And what's more, while on their trajectory, the keys manage to take away the colleague's tooth! :-P It sure would give us immense sadistic pleasure to do this in real life to everyone who has ever wronged us. But this is just a fantasy. What would be a mature way to handle the situation?

Such criticism is definitely a blow to our pride. The key thing to do here is to not lose confidence in oneself and try to understand the reasons behind the criticism. Personal prejudices, general frustration, stress and even bad weather are a few possible reasons. Most of these factors are not under our control. Say the boss had a bad start to her day at home. She vents out her frustration by criticizing or humiliating us. Then there could be the case of the other person just not liking us, plain and simple. They will scrutinize our every move, just waiting for an opportunity to bring us down. Even a single tiny slip up and they'll be all over us. No matter what we say, we're always wrong. And our hands are tied as they are in a position of greater power.

So what do we do? I think that we should stand up for what we believe in. We can't be wrong every time. Some anger is justified and even necessary. Just imagine, if Indians of the pre-independence era hadn't gotten angry and decided that enough was enough, we would probably still have been a colony under the British.

When we are being unfairly criticized, reacting to the situation with an emotional outburst may sometimes not work in our favour. It would look like we are being defensive. Instead we should listen to everything that is being said very carefully, take it all in and understand the reason behind it being said. Then we should prove the other person wrong, not by saying anything but through our actions. After all, actions speak louder than words. Also, it would be great to make it amply clear to the other person through our body language and tone of speech that we don't care for being unfairly judged or criticized. The challenge is to do all this while maintaining utmost politeness, so that try as they might, they won't be able to fault us. There's also the plus point that this will annoy them greatly! If we're rude, there would not be much difference between us and the other person.

Taking criticism and responding to it appropriately is an art. Some people are born with it. Others need to be put in such situations a few times to get the hang of dealing with them. Knowing how to deal with criticism is very necessary to maintain our peace of mind in this big, bad world, where unfairness is rampant and expectations are sky high

Picture courtesy:
1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-labermeier/negative-impact-of-criticism-_b_3829346.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in
2. http://conniedavisjohnson.com/2013/08/14/when-to-heed-or-disregard-criticism/