Three Steps to Stop Criticism

There are times when we are overwhelmed to find ourselves in the midst of an severe attack of criticism from others, and no matter what we do to correct the situation; it seems to bring in more and more reproach. It can be from your parent, manager, customer, a friend, or even your teenager kid. You can imagine that such an experience - Damned if you do and damned if you don’t - can be really frustrating.

How to stop such disapproval from being directed at us? How to dissipate the negative emotions of hate that it generates in us towards the critic even if he may be a loved one? Above all, when do we take it seriously and when should we just ignore it?

These are all good questions, but unfortunately there is no simple answer to them. After a lot of trial and error over the years, I have found the following three step process very helpful to deal with criticism effectively:

Step 1: View it Differently

The most important first step we need to take is to change how we view criticism. Learn to take yourself less seriously, stop assuming that you are perfect, and start being tolerant towards your faults – after all, we are all Cracked Pots in one way or other.

It is said that feedback is the breakfast of champions. Although listening to criticism is not really a pleasant experience, yet the feedback it brings can be really vital for our improvement. Let us think about mirror as an example. You use the mirror for dressing up every day as you cannot see how you appear to others without a mirror. It helps you spot any flaws in your appearance and correct them. Similarly, a critic helps you spot your flaws by showing you the mirror.

It may feel that a critic is making our job more difficult by adding resistance, but let us remember that a kite rises in the sky only when it meets the resistance of wind, else it may sag and come down.

Hence, whenever we sense someone is about make a negative comment about us, let us say to ourselves, “Here comes my opportunity to improve” and welcome his comment with open arms. Remind yourself that it is not being said against you as a person, but about your behavior, and you can do something about it. Put a smile on your face and listen to the feedback intently with all sincerity.

Even when we are faced with strong condemnation directed against us as a person, let us objectively filter out the noise and extract the useful constructive feedback from it. If you are unclear about some remarks, ask clarifying questions to make sure you have understood the essence of the feedback. Do not justify your actions or argue with the critic at this stage as it will defeat our purpose. It is not easy to get such a mindset quickly, but you can easily master it over time if you apply it consciously in all situations.

Step 2: Use it to Improve

Once you have extracted the feedback from the critical comments, next step is to use it to make improvements. How do we go about it? Typically the criticism relates to some past behavior or incidence, which has already taken place. So, it leaves you with a feeling of helplessness as you cannot hit the rewind button in real life, go back in past and change the incidence. Replace this emotion with a feeling that you can learn from this experience and be careful not to repeat this mistake in future.

One of my managers used to put it in a very interesting way, It is OK to make mistakes, but it is not OK to make same mistake twice.

Analyze the feedback carefully and find out what you need to do differently when you are in a similar situation next time.

• It may be a simple matter of being a bit more careful
• It may require you to be more sensitive about other people
• You may need to do better upfront planning and preparation
• There may be a need to enhance your knowledge or skills in a specific area

Whatever it is, being aware of what went wrong equips you with a powerful ability to take positive action to correct it. Make sure to take small steps towards making these corrections. As you continue to receive feedback, process it objectively, and correct your behavior, you will embark on a rewarding journey of self-improvement. The process may seem tedious and slow in the beginning, but very soon you will get the hang of it and it will pick up speed.

Step 3: Let it not Stop You

Nikhil recently came out with the following interesting comment:
There is only one way to avoid criticism - do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.

The third key step is to make sure that any fear of criticism, how-so-ever harsh it may be, does not move you to inaction and prevent you from saying or trying out things that you want to.

Doing nothing and saying nothing is not very effective solution for avoiding criticism as you will be criticized for inaction if you do nothing. Better to do something and get criticized.

Not all criticism is just and fair and at times you may be at the receiving end of unnecessary condemnation. It is important for us to be able to tell if a criticism is useful for us. You give the same treatment to an unjust criticism (as we do not know yet if it is one) – listen carefully and extract useful feedback from it about what can be improved going forward. You can tell the criticism is unfair if you find that it does not contain any useful feedback. In that case, it is best to ignore it and go about doing your work as usual.

So, what I am suggesting here is to view criticism in positive light, do your best, use constructive criticism to improve yourself, and ignore unjust condemnation. It may not be easy to implement, but is fairly simple to understand.

Wait! This maybe a good way to handle criticism but how can it help us stop criticism? It definitely does and it works as follows – when someone attacks you with criticism, he has an intense desire to be heard. The person would attack more frequently with greater intensity if he feels you have not heard him. When you take pains to listen to the critic’s opinion, it immediately satisfies his need to be heard and diffuses his pent up emotions. Later on when he sees you taking corrective action based on his feedback, he gets convinced about your sincerity and it increases his respect for you many fold. It is very likely that this critic will be more tolerant towards your minor flaws in future and will be more mild in his criticism. So, you can actually stop criticism if you handle it well.

Does it sound like some idealistic stuff that may not work in practical life? Have no concern. This is a tried and tested practical approach that I have been using in all kinds of situations and it has always worked well for me.

When You Need to Criticize

A word for the situation when you spot a need for improvement in someone else and have to criticize. Do not hold back your criticism, but keep in mind that he has to extract the feedback from it; So make it easy for him by skipping the disapproving remarks and give the useful feedback objectively. In other words, talk about the behavior, not person. Talk about what can be improved going forward and not focus too much in what went wrong in the past. Affirm your faith in the person as you give him feedback and be clear that you accept him as he is. Keep an attitude that this is how you see it and he has a right to differ with your opinion. Choose the right time and place for it, avoid doing it when you are angry or with others. Given in this objective and positive manner, your feedback is likely to be accepted by the recipient without being defensive.

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About this post

• The idea of this post was inspired by a post by Nikhil Tyagi on Facebook. Thanks a lot Nikhil for the inspiration.
• I wrote this post on my flight from Frankfurt yesterday. They seem to have WiFi available in the flight, so next time I will submit the post from there itself. :)