The first time a close friend took me aside to share some serious criticism was in 11th grade. She saw me making a mistake and tried to help me fix it. At the time, I jumped to the defensive and ignored her comments. Only with the 20/20 vision of hindsight did I realize that she was right. Our closest friends know us better than anyone, meaning that they’re the best people to help us tackle our flaws.
Taking criticism is never easy. Hearing about our own flaws tends to bring up a defensive response that has ended many a friendship in the past. But getting criticism is also the only way we can work to improve. Next time a friend tries to give you constructive advice, do your best to get what you can out of it without getting hurt.
Differentiate Between Mean And Constructive Comments
Just because a friend tries to help you, doesn’t mean she’s right. If your friend is more insulting than constructive, it might be time to reevaluate your relationship. But if she takes you aside and addresses the issue with kindness and respect, recognize that she’s doing her best to help you. Hear her out.
Avoid Defensiveness
If your friend shares constructive criticism with respect, avoid getting defensive. Responding to criticism with a defensive or belligerent attitude is a sure-fire way to start an argument. Your first reaction might be to defend yourself and deny her claims, but try not to vocalize these feelings right away. Instead, thank your friend for her concern and take some distance to think things through.
Do your best to get what you can out of their advice
Respect Their Opinion
Hearing criticism is hard, but so is approaching a friend with advice. Respect that your friend has your best intentions at heart and wants to help you. Instead of harboring resentful feelings, think about what you’d do if you reversed your roles. Letting a loved one make mistakes is easy–it’s much harder to intervene, but in the end it’s the right thing to do. Hard as it might be to hear, take the advice as a sign of love. It takes a lot of courage and affection to approach someone on a sensitive topic.
Evaluate With Honesty
Before broaching the topic again, think about what your friend had to say and evaluate her opinion. Be honest with yourself—is she right? If you have questions or want to talk things out more, go to your friend for help. Likewise, if you’re feeling hurt or blindsided, now is the time to talk through those emotions.
Set Goals
Once you’ve evaluated your friend’s advice, decide how you want to use it. Form some concrete goals based on the advice you’ve received to improve yourself. No one is perfect, and criticism is the only way we can see our own flaws and work on them. Use your friend’s honesty to make new goals for self-improvement.
Avoid getting defensive so you can understand their point of view
Those close to us see us at our worst, making them the best people to turn to in times of trouble. They’re also the best people to help us better ourselves. Sensitive topics are difficult for everyone involved, but we walk away stronger, ready to strive for new goals.
I am terrible at handling criticism. I act like I’m cool with it. But it eats me up inside. I keep bottling up to a point where I lash out eventually. And it’s a very ugly reaction when I do that. I need to learn how to deal with it.
I use negative feedback to inspire me. I just listen to the criticism and ask myself if it might be possibly good advice. If it is, I act on it and make changes for the better. If I think the critique is untrue, I use the other person’s negativity to fuel my fire, to motivate me to do what is right for me, and to go in the direction that suits me best. ?
Not all feedback is bad. Sometimes we just have to be open minded and think that it’s for out own good.
I try to figure out whether it’s coming from someone trying to ruin my day, or someone trying to help me improve myself. Sometimes it’s really difficult to tell the difference cause most people are rude and mean lowkey.
I’m not the type of person that would butt into a situation unless it’s damaging to the person I care about and a lot of the people around that person. In my life, I’ve always accepted the fact that any bad decisions that I made are my responsibilities and if it made my life worse, then it’s my fault. I like thinking that for other people it’s also like that. I would never hold other people responsible for my own actions but I’m fine with accepting criticisms. Hopefully, others would think this way too. That while they’re solely responsible for bad decisions, there are people that will be there for them that always offer them better choices to make.
People will always judge, hon. What are you gonna do? When I was younger I’d be very upset but since I hit my 40’s none of it phase me no more.
Honestly, I try act as polite about it as I humanly can but then I go home and spend so many hours beating myself up about it. I’m a passive aggressive person?
When you know who you are, the words of others carry less weight. You know what matters most to you and you know if you are staying true to your own path and what others say shouldn’t make you question who you are.
My reaction solely depends how highly I think of the person who is criticising me. If I respect them enough, I’ll listen and see how I fix the problem. If I don’t like the person, oh well. Some hell may or may not be raised. hahaha
I’d like to think I handle pretty well. First I listen. Then I rethink the whole thing to see if I can see their point, to make sure whether they have a point, or not, cause sometimes people can say things out of spite. And if I realize they were right, I try to improve myself on whatever the criticism was about.
Just suck it up. Don’t get affected by all the shit you hear and just suck it up. learn from it. adapt! overcome! Only the weak get affected by dumb words!