I was just recently review for work and I pretty much knew how it would go and then my boss said something toward the end that stuck. It was, “It is hard to take criticism from your peers and it takes time for one to accept it”. Over the past few years I would secretly take criticism really to heart and got down on myself about it. But now that isn’t so. I think the main reason is because I am much harder on myself than anyone else can be on me. I am now living up to my own expectations. That statement alone is very very important. Whatever someone says something about me I think about my actions, think how they are looking at the situation, and see if I have thought this way about myself and why I haven’t done anything to change.
The words provide action…
No matter what someone says to you something is always done. You either change or you don’t. If you change that means that you feel that it will be helpful to you in the long run in the way it shapes your life as a person. If you don’t that probably means that you either didn’t feel that isn’t a weakness you need to fix, to stubborn to look at what others are saying about you, or flat out what one is saying doesn’t apply to what the majority of people are saying about you.
Are you going to take what they say and do something about it?
I am going to change the way I do things. I really am. One this will help me in the future with whatever I want to do civil engineer wise, freelance wise, business wise, writing articles and novel wise, and just in general. I know that if I keep up with the changes I will only get better in what I am doing and also continue to edit my changes so that I will develop the best possible me. I remember an article from my friend Adam McFarland a while ago that talked about how the idea isn’t really nothing, but you or in his case a group of people continue to provide a service and with time develop a robust system that saves the company time, money, and piece of mind. The great idea is never figured out on day 1, all of the bugs are worked out and consistently being improved. That is the same with improving one’s self.
Criticism, at times it can hurt, but it is okay if you set your expectations higher than anyone. Ultimately people have motives for your life and the direction they want to swing it, but the simple answer to that is that it is you who have to deal with the outcome especially if it is something you whole-heartedly didn’t want to go through with.