If you handle criticism effectively then instead of acting as a discouragement criticism can really help you improve your performance and also your professional work. I remember a year ago some unknown person went through all the articles on my website and compiled a list of more than hundred typographical and grammatical errors and there were smilies all over the email message. No matter what that person’s intention was the pointers that he sent me really helped me improve the quality of my articles. It was also a good opportunity to rewrite some of them and update the information that was years old. The manner of sending the errors was not polite and he had even gone to an extent of suggesting me to take down my website because with so many writing errors I had no right providing content writing services.
Of course for some time I did feel bad and I did feel that I had done a lousy job writing all those articles. But then I thought my clients had been paying me for years and I wouldn’t have gotten so many clients if I were such a lousy writer. I spent a day removing all the errors that were really there and then sent him a thank you letter with a list of corrections and also with a list of suggestions I did not agree to. His next response was quite friendly.
When someone is criticizing you the intention can be anything; don’t focus on the person who is criticizing you and don’t even pay attention to the words and expressions being used. Use the criticism to improve yourself and there is nothing wrong in that. Even if there is a negative and strong reaction brewing inside, you hold your reaction and don’t counter the criticism immediately. Although some people suggest that you should take out whatever feelings you have inside immediately, that is not a good way of handling criticism. You may also think that how dare someone criticize you? Does that person even know what he or she is talking about? Does he or she have the authority and the requisite skill to give a constructive criticism? And if you started accepting and reacting to every second criticism coming your way then all the time you will be handling criticisms and this will surely wreck havoc with your confidence and your free flow of creativity. I know, this can happen. To handle this you have to be knowledgeable enough about your work. I’m not saying take every criticism seriously and let it rule your day-to-day activities. I’m just suggesting that whenever somebody criticizes, you instead of stonewalling the issue and counterattacking the person try to be a bit introspective and try to think how you can improve yourself using the pointers present in the criticism.
