BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Self Development 3 highly effective tips to handle criticism

Holly, I definitely agree with you that we should always engage our brain rather than our emotions when we receive criticism.

Most of the times we think that our brain responds, but I have seen emotions mixed with most decisions.


We can never really know what other people feel when they say certain things to us. Many times, we can take advice as criticism because of how we feel or what we are doing. It may not have anything to do with us personally, but rather be a way that somebody is showing their care and concern. What you say is true

A lot of times we seem to get stuck and someone will come and try to help us out. Depending on how we feel, we might completely interpret their words as negative. So if we engage our brain and stop to think about the way the person is responding, we might actually be able to gain something positive from the comments. If we just become hurt or angry, then our emotions have interpreted what is being said as criticism, rather than useful help and we gain nothing. This can best be done if we employ analysis

Usually we can tell when a critical person is giving criticism and we should decide if their advice is one that should even be listened to or acknowledged, much less be hurt by it. If someone that you know to be very kind, gives advice that hurts, then it is best to react with our brains and not with our emotions. The criticsm being given by a friend, partner, elder or whatever is probably given as advice and should not be hurtful, if we don't let our emotions take root.

We may get hurt or feel hurt. But the criticism may be right. No body likes criticism.

As an artist, we had to learn to critique each other and I had to learn that it was "positive" information, to help me, rather than something to hurt me.

We really should not be so fragile as to think that criticism is a personal comment on US or about US, but rather as something to help us. That, of course, exludes the criticism given by someone that we know to be mean spirited, usually harsh or generally very negative. We must believe in our own value and not let other's criticism negatively affect us. Before we believe in our value, we have to be sure that we have that.

Trish

I learned about cognitive distortions in a book about depression (called, "Feeling Good"), and learned elsewhere they also occur when people have problems with anxiety. I am gradually learning to watch out for the ten common distortions in my own thinking, and i have found it to help reduce anxiety and depression.

One of the common cognitive distortions is called "all or nothing thinking." Things are rarely "always," "never," "nothing," etc. Statements with these words in our everyday life are usually an exaggeration or distortion of the truth. I think it likely they are equally distorted when we receive criticism using those words. yes.

Another cognitive distortion is called, "jumping to conclusions," when you predict without supporting evidence a negative conclusion. We have to make some prediction in our lives to make good choices, but there is a difference between that and making negative claims with certainty when there is not enough supporting evidence. When others predict for us we should be careful there is evidence for these statements. How many of us think about this before reacting?

Another cognitive distortion is labeling. We might do this to ourselves. For example we might say, "I'm a failure." We shouldn't let other people label us negatively any more than we should do it to ourselves. Very true

So.... I'm thinking that when we are critized in any way recognized as a cognitive distortion How to find out that it is distorted? it is a good time to suspect the validity of the criticism. If we are told, for example, we can't be successful at something... not that we may have difficulty but that we can't do it... or if we have our efforts and work described as "nothing" when we know the effort we've made and have evidence of our labour, or if we are labeled negatively in some way, then it is probably a good time to engage our own judgment and give the statements a thorough examination before accepting these criticisms as valid. When we hear a criticism untempered and sweeping, there are very likely distortions present. It may be partially, or even completely untrue. It may also be true

People who have successful marriages soon learn that it works better to recognize and thank a person for what they've done and to encourage them rather than to only criticize them for what they failed to do. The same is true for successful parents or employers. It's human nature to get discouraged when our efforts and qualities aren't appreciated. Very true

Critiques in art classes or reviews in writing classes generally work because though you receive criticism you also hear what's right about your work, and you don't get sweeping statements like, "You'll never be an artist" or "you'll never be a writer" and it isn't made personal either, like, "you did this to me!" or, "you let me down!" These last statements reveal emotionalism and therefore are not unbiased judgments.

Holly,

Can you accept criticism without blaming the other person?