In everyday life, we often encounter criticism, sometimes soft and polite, but sometimes harsh and rude. How to behave so as not to become a victim - to go on the offensive, keep silent, run away? Let's try to figure out how best to meet criticism and become a winner, and not a victim in any situation.
Often the concept of “criticism” has a deliberately derogatory and destructive character for us. Why? Because behind the criticism we are accustomed to see the negative motives of advisers than a hint for self-improvement. So we perceive it painfully and in every way we try to protect ourselves. And what are these motives in our view?
"He envies me."
The most popular opinion in self-defense: he specifically says all this because he is envious of my successes and just wants to annoy me. And in such a simple way, we doom ourselves to stagnation and the slightest opportunity to see development.
"He wants to trample me in the mud and devalue all the good in me."
When can we think so? A couple of situations for example: they all hint that I got better, and now in the mirror I see only a fat cow; my husband says that I can’t cope with the tantrum of a three-year-old child, in fact, she says that I’m a bad mother.
In both cases, there is an incredible exaggeration of the criticism heard, where a small Bengal light in the hands simply turns into a bomb, breaking relations with relatives to pieces. The thing is that our thinking patterns are more twisted to praise, which most of us have sorely lacked since childhood. And how do the settings react when someone tries to make changes to the system? And how does the simplest computer respond? The programmer sits down, presses a couple of keys, just a couple - and a black screen. Therefore, each time, hearing unflattering things addressed to you, you can help the programmer trample us into the "black screen", or you can see those white lines that he prints to improve the system. Dirt or renewal? It depends on what motive we assign to the person. Got better? Well, I’ll see what I’ve been eating in recent weeks. Is it enough to walk in the fresh air. And whether I get enough sleep or because of lack of sleep I am constantly stressed and eat it every now and then. So, my family is worried about my health, and that means they are not indifferent to me. They want me to get enough sleep, rest more and not forget about the benefits in my diet. Can't deal with baby's tantrum? It could even be. Probably, they hint to me that I am tense, exhausted, that I do not get enough sleep that day and need rest. And I’ll ask my dear to sit with the child in the evening, and I will arrange unloading hours of rest for my nervous system.
To be able to attribute the necessary motives to critics, including those where they really are not, means saving your inner world from destruction. Let's learn to create such motives, and then criticism will benefit us in any scenario.
And what can be the use of sharply thrown comments at us? If we attribute good motives to such advisers, then it is much easier for us to see a grain of benefit in their words behind the tears of rudeness and even insult. And if we see this grain, we saturate ourselves with it, and not choke. Saturate and grow - spiritually, emotionally, professionally and sometimes even physically. I want to perceive the advice in a harsh form just exactly what you can choke on. I want to, but is it worth it?
Imagine that someone in a very rude form with a distorted face came up to you and threw the bundle in his hands: here you go, get it! Of course, the first reaction is to throw this bundle to hell or even to the head of this very boor. But if you still deploy? Open, and there is a diamond. Real, genuine, sparkles, shimmers, and now it is yours. Would you like that? Do you agree to withstand the offender's face twisted from negativity and the fact that he so unpleasantly stuffed it in your palm? Will it be important for you that he did not wrap it in a beautiful gift box and put it on a stylish clinking tray? What a tray! What a box! A trifle, a candy wrapper. What is this compared to a rare diamond? So is the advice that has befallen you. You will not find him for harsh criticism, will you, if he is wrapped in a box and gently brought up on a tray. Much easier when they say that you are magnificent, charismatic, unique, and only then suddenly add the notorious "but." We are used to limiting our own capabilities to these “buts.” We ourselves deprive ourselves, depriving ourselves of diamond enrichment, because we are tuned only to colored candy wrappers. So, the most important advantage of any advice heard is a diamond - a benefit. Thinking about the advice itself, and not the form in which it was given, we allow ourselves to see more opportunities for our own growth.
The second virtue of criticism is the preservation of relationships. People, sometimes near and dear, may not talk for hours, days, or even weeks, losing life, because one blurted out, and the second did not dare to take offense. Well, he blurted out - and I’d better take it and think about it, suddenly it was the missing step for my ladder to the next of the peaks. And if this step was not enough, if I didn’t do something or didn’t do it right, it doesn’t mean that I am wretched and crooked-handed - it just means that I didn’t have just one step to climb to the top of my “I”, my self-sufficiency. Not miserable, not bad, but successfully rising up. And with this advice - and even higher. Sometimes the way we accept criticism lays the foundation for that, and how they will give it to us again. They may not give at all - spare our feelings. But is it good when someone, staring at our mistakes, nods and shows us the class. That's better? But if it happened that the true motive of the adviser was actually to humiliate and insult, then perceiving his words sharply, making excuses, playing silence with him, building an offended person, you become an accomplice to his own game, as if you are paying him for he humiliated you. Do you like this? Then pay further - be silent, pout, do not answer calls, show annoyance. Do not want to pay? Then finish the game. But it will not end where you hide yourself with big shields from everyone - it will go under the curtain only if you react with the correct intonation to the advice, in whatever form it is given. See the diamond, and not the lack of a sparkling tray, flattering speeches and nods. A smile spoken aloud "thanks" will help to slow down the rockfall in your direction. This is perhaps one of the few reactions that stops cobblestones of any size. If you don’t know how to humor - here’s the first advice for you — learn to take some things at least with a smile. Not with an idiotic smile of self-defense of a poor humiliated rabbit, but with a smile of the dignity of a person who is so distinctive and significant that people spend so many words and emotions on you.
To summarize. Criticism is not always destructive. If we learn to attribute good motives to people when they give advice, if we see not the form of advice, for example, tactless or categorically impolite, but its grain, then, firstly, we give ourselves a chance for growth, improvement, and secondly, We maintain positive or even neutral relationships with this adviser, which is very good for heart satisfaction. And thirdly, we maintain internal balance, not allowing criticism to break us.