Dealing with Criticism and Rejection
Whether it's the other kids making fun of you at school, you
just received a really harsh performance evaluation from your
boss, you got turned down by the girl you asked out, or you
didn't get the job you interviewed for, rejection and criticism
hurts. I won't tell you not to take it personally, because it is
personal. You are the one who was criticized. You are the one
who was rejected. No matter how much self-confidence you have a
part of you cringes every time someone rejects you or criticizes
you. You are the one who has to get rid of that awful feeling in
the pit of your stomach. What do you do to make yourself feel
better?
You could be angry or revengeful, but that won't actually make
you feel wanted and admired. Quite often it can bite you in the
rear end too. You may have been a really close #2 for that
promotion at work. The girl who turned you down for the date
might have been in the middle of breaking up with someone and
was thinking that you would be a good companion later on down
the road. Your boss may actually like you a lot and it may be
his boss who told him that he was being too nice during the
performance evaluations and that he needed to be tougher. You
don't always know for sure why you are being criticized or why
you were rejected. If your gut response is to do something
vengeful, there's a good chance that you're closing the door on
any future acceptance by those same people. There's no long-term
benefit in alienating others who might have cared about you or
admired your work at a later time.
You could just assume that the other person is stupid or wrong
and completely ignore them and their opinions of you. The
problem with this approach is that you may have been able to
find nuggets of truth in their criticisms that you could have
used for personal growth. Not all criticism is meant to be
destructive and mean. Constructive criticism can be hard to take
but extremely useful. My daughter had heard that a dear friend
of hers was being made fun of at school because he had bad
breath and the kids thought he was homosexual because of some
clothing choices. She wrestled with the decision for a long time
before she finally decided to come forward and tell him what was
being said behind his back. He was mortified but he was also
able to make some changes in his personal hygiene and his
wardrobe choices. Ultimately he chose to take the course of
self-improvement and succeeded in drastically changing his
public image for the better. The same can be true if the
criticisms are coming from a coworker, a best friend, a boss, a
family member. The key here is to consider the person who is
offering the criticism. How are they saying it? What is their
real heartfelt intentions behind delivering a criticism. If you
trust them and believe that they genuinely mean well, then
consider what they are saying and whether or not they may have a
valid point. A bit of constructive criticism can be horrible to
swallow but ultimately the best thing that can happen to you.
You could obsess over what they've said. I have had readers
write in to tell me that my articles stink. One in particular
hated an article I wrote about picking and choosing a couple of
good causes to donate your time to rather then trying to do it
all. She obviously didn't read the article because she thought
that I was saying that I personally could single handedly save
the world, healing it of all it's problems. The whole point of
the article was to find balance between our desire to do it all
and the realities of what our talents, assets, and overall
lifestyles would really allow us to fix. My gut response was to
be very hurt and angry at the reader's harsh words and her ugly
assessment of me as a person and as a writer. The truth is, she
obviously didn't read the article. If she had she would see that
I absolutely agreed with her that I can not fix all of the
problems of the world all by myself. To obsess over her
criticism of my article would have ruined my entire day and
would have kept me from being able to get anything done. Her
letter is a perfect example of the idea that sometimes you have
to completely ignore the person who is rejecting you. Some times
people have problems or issues of their own and what they are
doing is venting at you and criticizing you without even
considering what they are saying or who you really are. You have
to ask yourself, "Is this particular person's opinion of me
accurate? Does their opinion of me really even matter?"
Sometimes the answer is no. "No they don't know what they are
talking about and no I really don't care what they think of me."
If this is one of those times, then there is really no reason
for you to obsess over what they've just said to you.
For your own sake, I would recommend taking your emotional
heart out of the situation. Do not allow your heart to make the
evaluations as to whether or not the rejections or criticisms in
your life are valid or not. From a logical position you can ask
the person who turned you down why they made that choice. Was
the other person more qualified for the job? Did the kids at
school catch you picking your nose in public? Were they having a
bad day? How can you improve yourself so as to safeguard
yourself from future criticisms and rejections? Stand up
straight, walk tall, and don't let them see you sweat!
Copyright 2004, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow's Edge