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.
Don’t view criticism as a bad thing, view it simply a feedback to help you move forward.
Admit it, when you are criticized your ego naturally takes a beating. My advice is to check in and identify if you really believe that the criticism is unfounded or if you are just fueling an innate dsire to be right. We all like to be right, but at times we o need a little direction from others who know better. ?
I’ve always had problem absorbing feedback or criticism. I always feel like the person criticizing me or giving feedback has something against me or hate me.
Unless proven otherwise, assume good intentions. Don’t jump automatically into conclusion that the person criticizing you hates you , although sometimes they do. ?
It’s hard not to especially if the feedback is negative, but at the end of the day what’s important is you the lesson you learned from that feedback.
My trick is to wait 24 hrs before I respond. When we first receive criticism it’s normal for this to trigger a whole host of emotions including anger, sadness and defensiveness and so it’s best to let these emotions settle before you respond. You’ll find that criticism won’t look half as bad the next day, once you’ve had some time for it to sink in.?
One of the reasons why criticism can play a really negative part in my life is that I can without realizing it, blow things way out of proportion. It’s easy to take things out of context or to mistake the tone of an email for something that was not intentional by the sender. And the best way to overccome this is to get really clear wit the person who is criticizing before you take things the wrong way. Don’ t react, simply respond by thanking them for the feedback and arranging a time to discuss it in more detail before you respond.
Listen and hear what’s being said. If necessary you can ask questions so you can understand the criticism fully. ?
It’s important to hear their side first and understand the reason behind the feedback before reacting and always remember it’s not about you as a person but what you did.
Many people get defensive when they are being criticized at work. Giving and receiving negative feedback constructively takes a lot of practice.
When I get feedback from a co-worker or my boss, I feel bad at first but at I realize it’s for my own good and the more I get criticized the better because I know what to do better next time.?
If you do feel that you may lose self-control, or say or do something potentially damaging, wa;k away. ?
It’s not easy at first but you have to be really open minded about receiving feedback.
I had a best friend that I knew for more than 10 years. Let’s just say that we were brutally open for criticisms no matter what kind and sometimes, we would openly admit how we think what we did was wrong. Almost like it’s an invitation for her to start acknowledging the fact that I was wrong and vice versa. It was okay for me and her because it was easy for the two of us to just tell each other constructively and honestly what we don’t like. But in the end, for some reason, she was so bitter about opinions and she would just throw back any opinion I had for a certain matter. She was suddenly defensive and I just grew tired of it so I never talked about stuff anymore. I don’t understand what happened and she never told me about it either. All of a sudden we stopped being friends and I didn’t even know why.