Is there somebody who is constantly critical of you that when in their presence,
even if you are needing to be in conversation with them that it causes you always,
lose your train of thought, or to forget what you want to say next or just,
maybe even stay silent? Or maybe is the mere thought of criticism and being rejected.
Is that causing you not to share your ideas or step up in meetings or to even express yourself?
If you have experienced any, any one of these things,
and this is the video for you. You, oftentimes,
an executive career coach, one of the biggest questions I get very often is,
how do I handle handle the fear of criticism?
What do I do when somebody is always criticizing me? And I want to be professional.
How do I handle it professionally? So this is what I'm going to answer for you in this video.
All of these questions related to the fear of criticism,
the fear of rejection, right? So this is a very close talk.
That's why I'm sitting on my sofa today,
because this is a fireside chat, even though there's not a fireplace behind me.
I really want to have a one-on-one conversation with you.
Because I get this question often enough
and I thought that it would be valuable for you to hear this.
Okay. So, when it comes to fear and rejection,
right? This is these are the things that we fear, but when it comes to fear and rejection,
rejection of themselves, we can't possibly know what their intention is. Right.
The one, the one who seems to be criticizing you,
the one who might be rejecting you.
Those are our own judgments,
your judgment of whether something is critical or whether they are rejecting you,
but the thing is the fact is you can't possibly know what they are doing.
If they are saying these things
for the purpose of rejecting you or criticizing you
and so therefore a label on this is in this is criticism or this is rejection.
That is your judgment and your judgment is neither right nor wrong,
but the fact is we can't have the full picture
and the other person is never going to tell you they intended to reject
you or intended to criticize you.
They're not going to say it to you. And so therefore at the end of the day,
we make assumptions. And we must because we desire to protect ourselves from social harms,
or things that might potentially harm us in our professional future.
So we make these assumptions to protect ourselves
and therefore to have some sort of emotional preparation on being rejected.
And so therefore, we can feel at peace with that assumption.
But the fact is that assumption alone is causing us to be silent,
causing us to fear the thought of criticism,
or rejection, even even though it hasn't happened yet.
So knowing that they are judgments.
The moment that you make a judgment that this is criticism.
This is rejection. The moment you make that,
then you will become a victim of criticism and rejection.
You become a victim of the moment you make that judgment.
So you can't possibly know what their intention is.
So why make that judgment?
Why make it? Why don't we, instead of making that judgment,
we can choose not to participate? In order to explain,
what do I mean by don't participate.
I want to share with you a personal example from my earlier career, years
in my earlier career, when I was going through high school and my first year of college,
my first degree in college. One of the most important things to me
was to do well in school was to do well in my work
so that I can achieve what I desired to achieve in my career path
and it was ingrained in me growing up.
Maybe it came from being coming from an Asian background where it is
so highly emphasized that you got to be excellent in what you do you have to get straight A's.
You have to be the top person in your industry and as a result of that,
I took it very seriously and very personally upon myself that I need to be the top.
The number one, at whatever I do and to have that recognition for it.
So as a result of that and then I went on to have my first job outside of college,
my first, corporate career position.
And in those positions, anytime there was even a single mention of a project about to meet the deadline
or even if somebody was asking me clarifying questions on about my work,
even the mere mention of those things caused me to perceive
it as criticism of the quality of my work,
right? And I perceived it
so and it hurt me so much that even just a comment about something that I work that I put out there
or even just a mention of,
oh, did you? We can expand on that or did you mean this?
Any clarifying question whatsoever I would constantly perceive it as criticism.
And so if that was my response,
which was back then, then I'm constantly participating in criticism.
So how you participate in this depends on how you participate inside.
So as long as folks in my example,
as long as my response is to these things on the inside was criticism to me then
any time there was mention on that on the outside.
I would perceive it as criticism.
So in order to flip that around this is how do you respond to those things within you. Do
you realize that in my in your career path.
Are you operating according to your highest values of what's important to you
and do understand who you are
and and the real objectives towards
what you're working on and is what you're working on in alignment with your highest values,
your real objectives and not values
or objectives, according to somebody else telling you what you should be doing? In those instances
you can be secure in knowing I don't need to judge myself.
There's non judgment on me. There's non judgment on someone else.
So being able to fully not participate in criticism needs to first
how you to adjust, how you respond to yourself in those circumstances,
because any fear of criticism from the outside is really an opportunity to
realize how you've been participating on the inside.
How is it? And why is this a criticism?
Why is it perceived constantly as criticism?
So, there's an opportunity to really explore deeper
and have some reflective awareness on what are these aspects of myself or my skills or my abilities?
What are, what are these perceptions on myself that I've really that
I’ve really haven't loved that
I really haven't owned or appreciated about me?
So therefore if someone else mentions it or talks about it,
then it's easy for me to perceive it as criticism and therefore participate in criticism.
The underlying principle behind this is that every individual desires to be appreciated
and understood.
Which means that usually I mean you might you might have heard this before,
but usually, when somebody says something to you and you perceive it as criticism or rejection,
that is a response to something that you're particularly sensitive about.
Or and it's also because of a judgment you made on that statement,
but usually on the other side, the speaker who's saying these things,
if let's say, let's say just
for the sake of argument that they really did intend to criticize or reject. Then
usually that intention comes from personal insecurities that they have. It’s never about you.
It's usually about the speaker, the sayer of those things.
It comes out of some insecurities that they do criticize
or they decide to be intentional or purposeful in rejecting or criticizing.
So as a result of that often times when we hear it,
our natural instinct is to want to call it out by saying,
I know what you're saying there. I know what you're trying to do,
you're trying to criticize me don't be so mean,
right? So that is like the in the instinct is for self-protection,
and we want to call it out and to set that person
right, so to speak, but usually,
that cup type of reaction is antagonizing.
It creates antagonization because people don't prefer to be called out.
They don't like to have a mirror put in front of them and they will deny it,
they will deny it. It takes a certain individual to
admit that they were doing this on purpose.
Even if they were it takes a certain individual.
So rather than calling out and say,
I know what you were doing and therefore revealing your assumptions because you could be off base,
rather than doing that, understand that people,
like really want to be appreciated and understood.
So instead of calling out with assumptions approach it with compassion,
and genuine curiosity. So what does that mean? In the moment
when people say something to you and you have it as a reaction to it internally.
And you want to perceive it as an assumption know,
in that moment that well, this is my assumption.
The key is to be non-judgmental nonjudging,
non-judgmental of self and non judgmental of others.
So, pure compassion is, I want to appreciate you.
I want to understand what it is that you are trying to tell me.
What is the message, the thinking behind what you're trying to tell me and you can ask questions.
I appreciate what you're saying. Is this what you meant by what you just said?
And that response is one of genuine curiosity and compassion.
I don't want to antagonize you. I want to understand you and I heard what you just said to me.
And I'm not going to make any judgment on it. I'm not going to judge myself being less than
or judge myself of being a victim of criticism.
But at the same time I'm not going to judge you, judge you of intentionally trying to criticize
or harm me. Instead
I just want to understand what did you mean by that?
I heard you. What did you mean by that? Can I clarify? And that
response is how you handle yourself professionally.
So that the fear of criticism and the fear of rejection,
no longer hold you back from saying your voice from finding your voice
and putting your message out there.
So I want to hear from you comment below. What did you learn from this?
What are your key takeaways?
And how are you going to handle yourself professionally
when it comes to being in the face of potential criticism and rejection?
How are you going to handle yourself differently? Comment below.
I want to hear from you, and as well, if you enjoyed this,
give me a thumbs up, subscribe to my channel as well.
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because every week I release videos on this
and I answer questions that a lot of my clients have
as well and I look forward always to hanging out with you in my next video.