How to deal with criticism of your work

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Freelancer Anastasia Polyakova shares tips on how to properly defend against criticism and how you can benefit from it.

Like many others, I thought that criticism should be able to accept. But in fact, it is much more important to learn how to defend against it. To prevent critical reviews from paralyzing or incapacitating you, you need to start building a line of defense and self-care.

1. Check for saboteurs

Even as a child, we were taught to see our mistakes and be ashamed of them - this was part of our upbringing. But if you overdo it, then a fairly strict upbringing makes us the harshest judges. Basically, there is nothing wrong with being your own main judge. It’s bad not to be your most important defender.

One of the difficulties we face when we receive criticism from the outside is that we cannot stop unquestioningly agreeing with it. At such moments, the same harsh judge in us echoes almost any criticism in unison. Protecting us from making mistakes, he also hides us from many discoveries, studies and victories, the path to which is dangerous and thorny. It leaves us in the sterile safety of small steps. But if we still want to get out of the comfort zone?

There are two sides to be represented in this court: the prosecution and the defense. So here's a daring exercise in ingenuity: When faced with criticism, come up with arguments for a lawyer too. You always have time to blame yourself.

2. Good weapons

You need to have an arsenal of rational considerations that can be brought back to the moments when you are criticized. This arsenal can be replenished and adjusted for yourself. Here are the methods I use.

• The reproach you received often relates more to the critic and his life experience than to you.
• One opinion, even a loud one, is not the opinion of all people in the world.
• Mistakes are essential for development, discovery, and research.
• You are not a gold piece to please everyone. It is even necessary for someone not to like it, because this is absolutely normal. And personal relationships will always play a role in the appraisal of work.

When coming up with your rationale ideas, choose those ideas that remind you that the critic can be wrong too. He is only human.

3. Response actions

After the blow is inflicted, you need to resist so as not to get bogged down in the caustic saliva of someone else's grumbling. Therefore, the third step in our defense will be retaliatory actions.

• Read or remember any praise or positive feedback.
• Pay attention to those who praise your work. Accept positive feedback and compliments. Or at least practice taking them - you also need to be able to do that.
• Consider finding like-minded people. But not those who only talk about work, but those who are seriously passionate about the same thing as you. Communication with such people will help you develop.
• Read the critical review again and analyze if there is anything useful in it. A valuable remark, a thought from which you can start and improve your work. Unfortunately, not every criticism carries worthwhile ideas. But if you get one, consider yourself lucky. It is right to use criticism to your advantage.
• Work is the best way to deal with criticism. Just start working immediately. And don't worry about quality.

In conclusion, I want to tell you what I think about criticism, and perhaps you will take my side.

The only point of criticism is to give you food to develop. One that you yourself cannot find, because one head is good, and different points of view can be unpredictable and surprising. Everything that does not serve this purpose, everything that you cannot use for your development, is unnecessary or even destructive information that must be learned to ignore. It is very important to be able to defend against harmful criticism in order to separate the gold particles of valuable ideas and improve your work.