11 Winning Disciplines for Processing Criticism

Let’s be unmistakably clear:

1. It is your responsibility to process any and all criticism effectively, no matter what.
2. Who criticizes you, what they criticize you for, and how they do it are not in your control. But how you process criticism is always completely in your control.
3. It is not someone else’s responsibility to criticize you in the exact way and time you prefer to receive it. Criticism like that is a rare luxury, not a necessity.
4. Most of the criticism you receive will involve something imperfect, inconvenient, or unpleasant. Understand that, accept it, and prepare to handle it well.
5. A flawed messenger or ineffective delivery does not invalidate any criticism against you. The criticism is separate from the criticizer.
6. Shifting focus away from the criticism against you and onto criticism of someone or something else does not invalidate or weaken the criticism against you. That is a defensive move to shift the blame and push responsibility for your actions away from you.
7. What you must not do when you get criticized: Do not try to discredit the other person, use their style of criticism as a reason to ignore it, use your own discomfort as a reason to ignore it, claim that the criticism is mean just because it is critical of you, or try to protect your image or ego.
8. When you receive criticism, the first and most important factor is whether any of it is true, relevant, or useful. Nothing else matters until you get reliable traction on truth, relevance, and value.
9. Only after you have thoughtfully evaluated the accuracy of the criticism and its merit can you shift your thoughts to evaluating the intentions of the criticizer.
10. Your emotions will try everything they can to push responsibility away from you. If you are going to process criticism well, you must bring strong discipline to the moment.
11. Imagine how you want someone to receive and process criticism you share with them. Embody that expectation yourself, even when the person criticizing you does it in undisciplined ways.

Event + Response = Outcome. Do the work.