On dealing with criticism [#14]
It stings, but is it avoidable?
Criticism. Someone telling you in no uncertain terms that they vehemently disagree with you, your point of view, or your decisions and actions.
We’d be lying to ourselves if it didn’t ever affect us. Criticism stings. We are social animals, and we are biologically wired to want to be with the crowd. Being outside of the crowd, isolated, is dangerous. After all, thousands of years ago, being ostracised was a death sentence, so any hint of being disapproved of can be seen as a threat, sometimes even a crippling one.
While your internal wiring hasn’t, the world has moved on. The world has become far more complex and, in the great scheme of things, far less dangerous than when you could become some beast’s meal any day.
And if you want to amount to anything, you need to learn to accept that you will be criticised.
There are three reasons someone may disagree with you:
They believe you are doing the wrong thing,
They want to do what you are doing and resent you for it,
Change makes them uncomfortable, they relish in the status quo
If everyone around you constantly agrees with you, it means that either A) you are not being ambitious enough or B) you are not in the right environment.
The arrogance of wanting to be irreproachable
As part of my constant upskilling as a coach, I attended on Tuesday a Q&A with Geronimo Theml, one of the world’s greatest coaches.
Two days later, there’s one thing he said that still is stuck in my head. In essence, he challenged us:
If even Jesus, the Son of God, had critics and was [literally] crucified by his enemies, how arrogant would it be to think that any of us can be exempt from it?
Digest that one for a minute. If even the closest link to Divinity to ever walk the Earth had critics, how can we, mere imperfect and fallible mortals even hope to feel we can be shielded from criticism?
We can’t. And the sooner we accept that we aren’t (better than Jesus), the sooner we will be able to live up to our true potential.
If someone criticises you, see it as part of the human condition, and not a failure on your part.
Criticism is a mandatory stop on the path to success
Regardless of what success means to you, acknowledge and accept that there is no winning. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t”, goes the adage.
If you decide to go the extra mile because you are keen on an opportunity to step up at work, people will criticise you for being a workaholic
If you focus on being effective and protect spending time with your family, people will criticise your lack of commitment
If you decide to start your own business, people will criticise your delusion, recklessness and arrogance
If you decide you want to build a career in corporate, people will criticise you for selling out and not doing your own thing.
If you are to be criticised anyway, you might as well be criticised for doing what moves your life in the direction you want it to.
Better be criticised for what you do than being criticised for stagnating.
Fear of criticism slows you down
Wanting to avoid criticism is the biggest slowing force you will ever deal with. There’s a more trendy name for that fear: perfectionism.
Seeking to be perfect is ultimately being intolerant with the idea of doing things that leave room for you to be criticised.
Perfectionsim is slowing down how much you do because of fear. When you build, sweat the small stuff: build well or build twice. However, once something is done, be ruthless with your prioritisation. If it takes you 10 minutes to go on your website, to edit a typo or a missing punctuation, and that same 10 minutes can help you reconnect with someone in your network, which one is a best time investment?
The reality is that, save for rare and very visible exceptions, fixing a wonky sentence or a typo is very rarely worth the trade-off. If you couldn’t avoid it the first time around
validate that you have the proper checks and balances when you build, and
learn to accept the wonky - if supermarkets sell wonky veg, you can deal with wonky copy.
By being a perfectionist, you have enabled your peer to go further and faster than you - I promise you that a typo on slide 12 is not going to be what decide whether they or you get promoted; how much and how fast you deliver might.
Reframe criticism
We need to change how we perceive criticism (full transparency, I include myself in the we). Let’s move away from seeing it as a negative thing and let’s think of it as opportunities and signals
Opportunities to improve what we are doing (feedback is a gift),
positive signals you are making waves, you are moving the needle
Did you hate this Letter? I’m sorry to hear. Please, do let me know. At best, you’ll help me do better next time, at worst, you’ll show me you’ve read it.