Hi, I'm Kevin Eikenberry, and I'm here to help you reach your potential as a leader
and a human being.
Welcome to Remarkable TV and the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
Today we're talking about how to take criticism.
Are you ready?
Let's get started.
I know criticism can be hard to take.
I mean, that's clear, right?
Let's talk about why that is.
Number one is we don't like making mistakes.
We don't like making mistakes.
And then when other people see those mistakes, we may have all sorts of
emotions related to not just self-inflicted stuff, but like now
I feel bad because of other people are seeing it do, etc..
We don't like making mistakes and we take things personally.
So if someone criticizes us, we take that
as a personal attack, even if it wasn't meant as one.
That's one of the reasons criticism is hard.
We take it personally.
And the third one, let's be honest, some people deliver it badly.
I mean, they deliver it
in ways that feel hurtful or that feel painful or that leave us feeling worse
that even if we already were aware of the mistake that perhaps we made.
So the question today is not to say yes is hard, but to say what can't?
Because it's hard.
How can we take it and how can we use it?
Or how could we at least decide if we want to use it?
So what I have is several pieces of advice to help us take criticism
and turn it into something valuable for us.
Okay, here we go.
Number one, we have to personalize it, even if the person delivered it badly
and it feels like they're pointing at you and they're criticizing you personally.
The minute that we feel that we get defensive
and if we're defensive, it's not even getting through.
So what we need to do is depersonalize it enough so we can actually hear it.
What are they actually telling us?
Is there something there worth us hearing?
Right.
Which means that we have to sort out the lessons.
Now, not everything they say
we agree with, but sometimes we have blind spots.
And so by if we're willing to at least let it through
so that we can, we then have the raw materials
for possible lessons to sort out the lessons from the rest,
depersonalize it from ourselves, and sort of quit blaming them
for the way they delivered it, even if they did it very, very poorly,
and even if they did it with bad intention.
Right. And then we can decide what to learn.
We can sort that out and we can sort of look at it and say, okay.
Valuable to me, not valuable to me.
Whatever
we don't have to necessarily take action on anything that we're criticized about,
but we need to hear it and understand it
well enough so that we can make some decisions.
We can decide what we want to learn from it.
And then we can decide what to do, if anything.
Is there something in all that that we might want to do something
with a site that we can decide what to do with it?
And then, of course, do it?
And then the last thing is we need to realize that it could be really good news.
In other words, even if it's hard to hear, there's I'll put it this way.
I'm guessing there have been times that you've gotten difficult feedback,
negative feedback, criticism, if you will,
that when you look back on it later, like, yeah, I needed to hear that, like that,
that was part that was useful for me to get better.
And so if we're willing to sort of say, okay,
there may be a nugget in here, so let me look for the nugget.
Right? That will help me right from the start.
It kind of brings this list back to the start.
Like if I realized there could be good news in this,
even if it's crappy the way I feel about it as I'm getting it,
it will help me depersonalize it so I can find the nugget, if you will.
Right.
So you personalize it enough so you can hear it,
so you can sort out the lessons, so you can decide what to learn
and what you want to do, if anything, and realize there could be good news
in all of it.
Those are six things you can do to help you take criticism and make it
useful for you.
Let me close with today's tweet.
When you
depersonalize criticism and look for seeds of truth,
you will be less likely to feel victimized and more likely to learn something.
Here's what I know.
If you're willing to take criticism, you probably have a more remarkable day,
which happens to be
the name of our newsletter that comes out every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
It's free.
I hope you'll join us for that.
It's called Your Remarkable Day.
You can learn more by going to Kevin Eikenberry dot com slash newsletters
where you can sign up for that. Don't go to that.
They hope you'll be back next week
for another episode of Remarkable TV and the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.