A little something about me.

I am presently doing a 30 days writing challenge across my social media pages, and on the 12th day, having had a very long day at work, I couldn’t bring myself to write on the topic I wanted to because it would take a lot of brain work and typing, so I asked a friend for suggestions on topics to write. He gave 4 suggestions and I eventually decide to write on one, then I thought “why limit this to my social media pages, why not share this with my readers on Her Quota”, and that is exactly what I would be doing today.

So the question is: HOW DO I HANDLE CRITICISM?

I remembered asking him to explain what he meant, he said "have I ever met someone that said to your face that they don't like you", before I could respond, he said "and was violent about it". I said "violent? No. Damn serious and mean about it? A million times".

So leggo, how do I handle criticism?

I won't go about differentiating between positive and negative criticism and a bunch of stuff, I will just dive right in. I handle criticism in 2 ways:

1. I am very comfortable with who I am. And I have grown to have valid explanation for how I live, well, at least valid to me, so when I am being criticized for it, I just stare on...unmoved, unshaken, undeterred.

2. Like almost if not every normal person, I don't like to be criticized, I don't like that confrontation of been accused me of something not well done. I love to be perfect. I love to be loved. I love to be accepted. I love peace. I just want everything on track. But then when I am criticized for something not well done, I do either of 2 things; I swing into action to be better OR I get defensive. Defensive in the sense that I would be trying to explain to the recipient why I do/did what, which leads back to point 1 above which is the fact that I am comfortable with myself so I feel that if I explain things from my perspective, then the recipient will understand things better.

But then one day a wise friend told me, "when people say something about/to you, it is either out of a good place or a bad place, but it's ALWAYS from their OWN perspective, so don't get all defensive, don’t always try to explain yourself, just nod, thank them, weigh what has been said, sieve away whatever you are certain is not true and hold fast to the useful (if there is anything useful about it)".

And that, my friends, has been what I have been doing ever since. I am still learning, but I am sure better.

So if I will answer the question in a more direct way, I would say "I handle criticism by FIRST being comfortable with myself (my values, principles, dreams, goals, personality), so when I am being criticized, whether positively or negatively, I smile on, thank whoever is the criticizer, and try to hold on to the truth, if there is any from what he/she has said, and improve myself if need be.

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For the other 3 suggestions my friend gave, they are:

* What's the most painful decision I have made: a decision I know is right but very painful to make?

* What is the most difficult situation I have had to face at work?

and;

*How do I handle competition?

I will talk about the 1st two someday but for the third; How I handle competition; I have already answered that in one of my posts on here - Purpose and Envy

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