How to Handle Criticism and Get Something Good Out of It

If you react immediately to criticism then you’ll often react in a knee-jerk manner. And the words that come out may be overemotional, vicious and unnecessary. Count to at least 10 after someone has criticised you. Then respond. This simple way of calming yourself down and regaining some perspective can save you a lot of trouble and help you avoid saying something you can’t take back. It’s a good approach to avoid creating unnecessary problems.

Maybe you’ve heard this one before. It’s a great and practical way to look at criticism. It might be extra useful when dealing with angry, destructive criticism and nasty personal attacks.

“A man interrupted one of the Buddha’s lectures with a flood of abuse. Buddha waited until he had finished and then asked him, “If a man offered a gift to another but the gift was declined, to whom would the gift belong?”

“To the one who offered it,” said the man.

“Then,” said the Buddha, “I decline to accept your abuse and request you to keep it for yourself.”

Simply don’t accept the gift of a criticism. You don’t have to. Then it still belongs to the person who offered it.

My mindset for praise – that I try to stick to as much as I can – is that it’s cool and I appreciate it. It’s great to get praise, but I seldom get overly excited about it and jump and down shouting enthusiastically.

A great upside of this mindset is that when you receive the opposite – negative criticism – you can often observe it calmly without too much wild, negative emotions blocking the way. And you can often appreciate that piece of criticism too (if there is something to learned from it).

Basically this mindset is about not caring too much about what other people think. If you do then you easily become pretty needy and let others control how you feel. Both how good and bad you feel.

So you move from depending on external validation to depending more on internal validation. You validate yourself more and more and then you need less of outside validation. Don’t take this too far though. Don´t become that arrogant jerk who never listens to criticism no matter how valid it might be.

If there is nothing to be learned from some piece of criticism you received or it’s just nonsense ravings and insults then with this mindset you just go: “Ok”. You don’t care that much and you quickly forget about it. Instead of spending the rest of the day being angry, sad and riled up.

Shifting into this mindset isn’t always easy. You can slip quite a bit. But if you learn more about your mind – especially about your Ego as Eckhart Tolle describes it in books like Power of Now and A New Earth – this understanding gives you more control over your reactions and less knee-jerk responses.

Instead of attacking the other person(s) for their words and building a hostile atmosphere try to calm it down. Try to remain level-headed, open and figure out how this can help you. Even when someone blurts out something not too constructive like “Your work/blog/product sucks!” you might want to ask a few open-ended questions like:

- Why does it suck?
- How can I improve it?
- How can we solve this?

If they can’t answer your questions then they are probably just lashing out. But there is sometimes valuable information in negative criticism. Things no one else will tell you. Try to get practical and concrete details about what’s wrong. Perhaps there is already a solution to the problem but you need more information to realise that. By improving the communication and making it more specific and detailed you can come closer to understanding each other and solving the problem.

And if you can understand, help and change the mood of the one delivering the criticism he or she will probably appreciate it quite a bit. And you may have turned a potential conflict into a valuable relationship.

If someone makes a personal attack or just let’s the destructive words flow then remember that criticism isn’t always about you. Criticism is a way for the one critiquing to release pent up anger, frustration or jealousy. Or a way to reinforce that his/her viewpoint or belief is the right one. Or s/he may have habit of getting others involved emotionally – baiting them – to build a negative spiral, an argument/fight or to get attention. It’s about him/her. Not about something you did.

It can have a calming effect to remember this. And to remember that the other person is still human and might just be having a bad day or week.

Considering the criticism from this viewpoint makes it easier to handle it like Buddha. And if you don’t feed the other person and the situation between the two of you with words and energy then you’ll stop it all from building into a full-blown argument. When you don’t participate in that little dance then the one critiquing will probably start to loose steam quickly and quiet down.

This is useful to keep in mind if you have a habit of getting into arguments with someone in particular. Or if someone at work has habit of creating pointless arguments.

This tip ties into interpreting and viewing life in a more positive way. I recommend reading Take the Positivity Challenge! and generally try to focus on interpreting reality in your day to day life in a more positive way.

That positivity is something you can use to get more out of criticism and get less hurt by it. It makes it easier not fly of the handle but instead answer in a positive and level-headed way. And it will sometimes help dissolve the situation as the one that critiques – slightly shocked at your open and level-headed response – cools down and becomes more receptive and helpful. This can help you get more useful feedback out of the situation.

If you work on improving your general mindset into a more positive one then it will start to seep into situations without you having to do very much consciously. You just start to automatically interpret more situations – including those where you are being criticised – in a more positive light.

Finally, some very basic and practical tips. Eat and be well-rested before you for example go into a meeting where you can anticipate criticism. Hunger and a lack of sleep can make anyone behave irrationally and in an unusually negative way.

Since words are only 7% of communication – the remaining 93% are voice-tonality and body language – it may be wise to not reply to criticism via email if possible. It’s probably be better to get the person who sent such an email on the phone or go see him/her in person. This can help you to avoid creating a whole mess of misunderstandings. Avoiding email is also useful to keep in mind when you are about to criticise someone.

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