Criticism can destroy or stimulate. It is especially powerful when we are our own critics. Most individuals or groups will have to face up to and deal with their own or someone else's criticism if they wish for success.

The Ukraine team lost 0-4 in their first group match of the Word Cup 2006. They were so motivated by this loss and the resulting criticism that they won their next match by 4-0. They played like a different team. Fair criticism worked well for them!

David Beckham, England's captain, has one way of dealing with criticism - work. Hard work is one effective response to criticism.

Some football coaches have banned newspapers from their training camps in case the comments of the media demoralized their teams. These coaches realize the damage that unfair, negative comments can do. We criticize ourselves enough without the assistance of the press!

Unfair criticism, especially self-criticism, can break you unless you believe so much in what you are doing that you can persist in working without recognition.

When I was moved up a year at my school I was criticized by my new classmates who were a year older than me. They called me 'Watty The Swat!"

I thought I must be doing something wrong and gave up working for the next two years. Later, I realized that there is nothing wrong with working hard but criticism can mean that you start to doubt your own values.

One group who persisted and worked on in the face of unfair criticism were the French Impressionist painters. Recently a BBC program featured their lives.

The program claims to be based on true records from the past but one must allow for some poetic license in the narrative and dialogue.

Monet lived longer than his Impressionists friends and was eventually able to enjoy the success and recognition his talent deserved. However, even he had to suffer the criticism of fools.

At one point the Impressionists held their own unsuccessful exhibition at the Salon of Rejects. One visitor paid his franc for a ticket and read aloud the following press critique:

"On looking at the first rough works and 'rough' is the right word, one simply shrugs one shoulders. On seeing the next lot, you burst out laughing but, at the last one, you finally get angry and you are sorry that you did not give the franc you paid to get in to some poor beggar."

The visitor commented: "No, that's not it. No! Give your franc to a beggar then he can go and buy two of their paintings with it."

In another incident, a man and a woman were laughing at one of Monet's paintings. Monet noticed this with some annoyance and went over to confront them.

"Something about the work that you don't understand?" he asked.

The man replied with a smirk:

"Oh! the artist himself. Actually, I do have a question. Yes! How is your eyesight?"

Monet was furious: "I think you should leave now!"

"No! We've paid our money. We're having our entertainment!"

"This is an art exhibition not a circus!"

"Oh! So this wasn't painted by a clown?"

"Maybe, I should make myself clearer?"

"Oh! I agree with that."

"You are upsetting my wife."

At this point the obnoxious visitor and his companion left the salon.

Much later in his life, Monet commented:

"They said we were declaring war on beauty and that wall paper in its embryonic state was more finished than our pictures but our young heads were filled with beauty."

Monet painted a picture and called it "My Impression Of Sunrise."

Someone gave his impression of the picture: "My impression? Unimpressed!"

From this insult came the name "Impressionism".

Monet exclaimed ruefully:

"A name - the only return on all that work!"

Paul Cezanne was also included in the BBC program. Cezanne kept painting in his unique and powerful style with passionate persistence in spite of criticism and indifference.

His own father told him that he was wasting his time:

"You're not earning a penny. Perhaps you're not good enough."

His friend Zola told him: "I want you to paint the world; then at least you might sell something."

Cezanne replied: "I am painting for myself not to amuse other people."

He lived on handouts from his father and Zola.

The critics were brutal. Cezanne told Zola:

"The critics call my work the cult of ugliness painted by a madman with the shakes made by loading pistols with paint and firing them at the canvas!"

"Well, you