Unless you live alone and never interact with anyone else, you’re going to face criticism at some point in your life. Sometimes it’ll be intended to help and other times it’ll be intended to hurt. In either case, it’s important to know how to receive it and what to do with it. Here are some things that help me with both of those.
More than anything else, I’ve found the most beneficial thing for handling criticism to be getting in control of my ego. I do this by focusing on presence, relaxing, and refraining from taking anything personally. There are many life hacks that are great for getting me into a better state of mind for handling criticism. Something that also helps me is remembering times in which I’ve used criticism with good intentions in mind. This makes it easier to give others the benefit of the doubt and see their criticism as an effort to lift me up rather than drag me down.
After I get my ego under control, I think about who is criticizing me and why they might be doing it. If it’s a close friend who has always been there for me, then I consider their criticism to be intended to help me and I listen to what they have to say. On the other hand, if the criticism is coming from someone who dislikes me or appears to be a result of bad intentions, then I do my best to ignore it. If I’m in doubt as to the motivation behind someone’s criticism, I may ask them about their intentions or, more likely, I’ll just say “Ok” at the time and then forget about it later. In any event, I try to avoid dwelling on criticism that’s intended to hurt and see what I can learn from criticism that’s intended to help.
I’m no expert at handling criticism but I’ve gotten better at it over time. As I’ve regularly met and gotten to know many new people and continued learning new things, I’ve learned that criticism can be extremely beneficial when offered and received properly. For example, I’ve improved tremendously at swing dancing in the relatively short time I’ve been doing it because I’m always looking for feedback and tips on things I could be doing better. It helps that I’m actively seeking that criticism instead of having it foisted upon me, but even when that happens, I can still handle it better than I used to. I hope you find this information useful. And if you don’t, please feel free to let me know. I can handle the criticism.