The hardest part of processing and responding to criticism? Your reactive emotions get first access, not your clearest thinking. You feel criticism before you think about it.
No matter how lightly it’s delivered, criticism triggers a cocktail of emotions: fear, anger, surprise, annoyance, confusion, frustration, guilt, disappointment. And behind every emotion lives a story: not being good enough, loss of value or image, unfairness, rejection, weakness, isolation, exposure, vulnerability.
Emotions pull you into a story. The story pulls you further into your feelings. The story doesn’t have to be true for the feeling to be real. Your feelings feed the story. You’re deep into your emotional cycle before you have a chance to really think it through.
That doesn’t mean criticism can’t trigger other feelings connected to different stories: curiosity to learn, enthusiasm to improve, appreciation for new awareness, grateful for clarity, motivation to achieve, desire to make adjustments. Criticism can absolutely trigger those, too.
The human nature reaction to criticism is emotional before it’s logical. You are a human, so you won’t eliminate those instant reactive feelings. But you don’t need to eliminate them. You need to get across the bridge from reactive feelings to clear thinking.
You must bridge the gap between your initial emotions and your disciplined judgment. But your emotions rarely want you to do what.
Your feelings want to keep you in place telling the emotional story, validating that story and reinforcing those feelings. Not even considering what might be on the other side of the bridge.
It's your responsibility when you get criticized, no matter what you’re feeling, to walk across the bridge into clear thinking territory. Bring your emotion with you, but you must get to the other side where you can access clear thinking, good judgment, and other stories besides the ones your emotions are telling.
You build that bridge on awareness, discipline, and confidence. Tomorrow I’ll start showing you how.
Event + Response = Outcome. Do the work.
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