CRITICISM

by Rebecca Kimbel ~ Author and Motivational Speaker

Criticism is a fact of life. We live in a world full of opinions and advice. Our success or failure is not dependant on criticism; on the contrary, it is dependant on our reaction to criticism. How we handle criticism affects our decisions. When our need for acceptance and our need for survival are not emotionally balanced, criticism can be a precarious ordeal.Criticism can be seen as constructive or destructive. How it is intended is never as important as how it is perceived. Self confidence, emotional maturity and the need to fit in, all play an important roll in the perception of the person receiving the criticism. How a person does or does not internalize criticism is affected by many factors which may not have anything to do with the critic themselves.

If a person has grown up in an environment where criticism was used as a method of control, destroying self esteem, and undermining abilities, their response to criticism is often internalized as a flaw in their character, painfully becoming a wound in their perception of who they are. They respond without separation or definition between the subject and themselves. They emotionally respond as if there is no difference between making a mistake and being one. Personalized responses can be extremely destructive. Such habitual responses to criticism are taught through generations of culture.

Comparative few of us have grown up in environments where criticism was seen as another opinion and analyzed accordingly. Few of us were taught to analyize the cause and effect of the ideas within the opinion. Few of us learned to consider its merit in long and short range goals and to question and study the ultimate benefits of the criticism, if there were any. Few of us learned beneficial responses.We can change habits. Stop giving another persons opinion more weight than it deserves. Question the validity of what has been presented. Question and understand the out come over time. Make better choices.

Criticism is an opportunity to raise above a condition, not necessarily in the way the critic tells you to, but in a way that challenges you to do better things for yourself in the long run. Criticism, good, bad or different, provides opportunities for thought provoking analysis, if we are willing to look at it objectively and not personally. Often our need for acceptance or rebellion clouds thinking responses and we bypass the analytical opportunities criticism provides. Refuse to let your need to fit in over ride your need for a good future. Nothing enslaves us like our ignorance. Our willingness to participate in our self destruction as a means of fitting in is a hall mark of that ignorance.

Rebecca Kimbel ~ Motivational Speaker

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