How I Learned to Accept Criticism—Without Taking it Personally

I got an entire spreadsheet from all my fellow club members full of feedback written just for me. How was I not supposed to take it personal...

I got an entire spreadsheet from all my fellow club members full of feedback written just for me. How was I not supposed to take it personally?

Photo by Surface on Unsplash

There was a time where when someone gave me criticism I was ready to fight back. My body and chest would heave up and I was determined to defend any ounce of pride that might be shattered from their point. I now realize that was defensiveness, but at that time, a piece of criticism felt like life or death was on the line. I took things very personally. “What do they mean my project wasn’t good enough? What do they mean I could clean up the mess better? What do they mean I was too x, or y, or z?” Excuse me?!

Criticism felt like a direct threat to my pride. But in college, I joined a club where I later found out that every semester, we got an end-of-semester spreadsheet full of feedback written for us by all the other club members. For eight semesters, I received an email titled “Nia” and when I opened it, I saw a spreadsheet with 19 rows of feedback on what I did well and what I need to improve on from all the other board members. If there was any time I needed to get better at taking feedback, it was going to be now.

What is criticism?

Criticism has a negative connotation — and there is a biological reason for that. If we were shunned or judged by a group in the past, we could get outcasted or left alone. That would not be good for our chances of survival if other people had a lot of negative judgments about us.

As a natural response, we might become defensive. Guarding our bodies and hearts against whatever critical attack we perceive might be coming next. Defensiveness is unfortunately seen as one of the four horsemen in an unsuccessful relationship according to relationship American psychologist Dr. Gottman.

The reality is people might say negative comments about you. This makes sense — we are all human, which means we are not perfect, and that’s totally okay! That’s what makes us amazingly wonderful too. However, because we are imperfect humans…a partner, an employer, a family member, or a friend will likely one day have a comment that you might perceive as a criticism. Or in my case, a club might have a spreadsheet full of feedback on how you can improve.

So how can we move through taking criticism or feedback personally?

1. Reframe how you see criticism to be a useful piece of information

In that feedback spreadsheet, I remember someone telling me I was stubborn. If your first reaction is to get defensive or annoyed, guarding yourself off, or wanting to prove them wrong, take a step back. You can ask yourself hey is there any truth here? Is this feedback true?

The benefit of criticism is you can always see if the point is true for you, and if it is, now you have room to grow and improve. Now you can allow yourself to work on your stubbornness. This is a golden nugget — a piece of information that actually benefits you because now you have the insight to improve! If we don’t grow, we stay within our current comfort zone. Growing allows us to realize more of our potential.

I use to get upset when someone when criticize my work — but then I realized they are helping me learn how to make my work better. I have this new insight on how to make something stronger and that’s amazing. So see criticism as a golden nugget — a shiny piece of information that gives you insight into how to grow. And as we grow we can become a better version of ourselves, reaching an even higher potential!

2. Realize nothing a person says is personal

At the end of the day, nothing someone else does to you is personal. It’s solely a reflection of their own inner world and their own programming from the past. Our ego wants us to think otherwise. When we hear criticism, we might perceive it as an attack. “How dare someone say that to me?” So we might counter-attack and be harsh to the person back. Or we might try to play an innocent victim, and make the person feel bad for us.

But when someone tells you something, it’s not actually personal. It doesn’t mean “you’re not good enough,” “you’re defective,” or “something is wrong with you.” It’s just that based on their own programming and past, this is what they believe is a criticism/something for us to work on. And you can decide if you agree, give yourself compassion as a human being, and then take accountability and work on their feedback if you would like to. Whatever they said to you though, is not personal.

I use to get feedback that I defended my points a lot, and it was destructive to group harmony. Someone else wrote how much they loved I was great at asserting my points. Two people wrote about the same situation but had totally different viewpoints. One gave me positive feedback on it, and one wrote it in a negative light. No piece of criticism is going to be 100% objective because it’s all based on someone else’s subjective worldview. This helped me depersonalize criticism as well, and take it for what it is: that person’s perception of me.

3. Practice self-acceptance

Lastly, I want to highlight how sometimes, criticism can evoke feelings of shame. When someone gives us criticism we might defend ourselves to protect ourselves from the shame we now feel. For example, let’s say you know you’re bad at poker, and someone says “Simon, you’re bad at poker.” If you know this and have accepted it, you might laugh, joke about it, or acknowledge its validity. But let’s say your whole family is great at poker and you’ve been trying your whole life to be good, but it hasn’t worked. When someone says “Simon, you’re bad at poker” it might strike a nerve. We get defensive about criticism when it’s things we don’t or haven’t accepted yet.

If someone is giving you a point of criticism and you have accepted yourself fully, you’ll be able to hear a point of criticism without feeling shame. You won’t think it means “something is wrong with you” or “you’re not good enough” or whatever other wounds your ego wants you to think. When you work through and remove the shame from a point of criticism, you can see the point of criticism for what it is and decide if you want to work on it. But you’re not beating yourself up and lowering your self-esteem with negative self-talk.

Accepting yourself means loving all parts of who you are enough to be willing to hear others’ feedback without feeling shame in the process. If you accepted yourself fully and know it’s totally normal to be human and have flaws, and that still makes you great, and worthy, what would agree with the point of criticism? This mindset allows you to grow and evolve — instead of remaining stuck in your shame.

This last point really helped me receive criticism from a more open, receptive, and loving space. If a point someone said hurt my feelings, I took the time to be self-compassionate to myself and have self-acceptance. And then I was able to look at the criticism point again to see if it was something I felt was true or not. Self-acceptance also allows us to de-personalize others’ views. With self-acceptance, we can receive a point of criticism and not take it as personally.

Want to buy me a coffee? https://ko-fi.com/purposeistolove (I’d be very, very thankful!)

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How I Learned to Accept Criticism—Without Taking it Personally was originally published in Better Humans on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.