If there’s one truth in life, it’s that there’ll always be criticism of what you do. You can’t avoid it but you can respond to it so you feel better about yourself as well as dampen the conflict 

It was late on a crisp Fall Saturday. Harry and Louise were finishing painting the trim on their Queen Anne-style Victorian house. They had carefully researched Victorian color schemes and felt comfortable with their decision. The color they had chosen was a Nantucket blue which they thought would better complement the gray of the house than the non-traditinal dull white used by the previous owners.

As Harry lowered the 24-foot ladder and Louise hammered on the lids of the paint cans, they both smiled with satisfaction at the aesthetic result of their hours of labor.  Little did they know everything was about to change.

At that moment Tom, their next door neighbor, wandered into the yard to look at what they’d done. "You did a pretty good job," he said nodding, "but how is that going to look when the paint dries? Well, I guess it could be okay, except for the splatters. Maybe it’s not really too garish for the neighborhood."

Harry and Louise’s mood plummeted. What had seemed like a personal achievement was now being critically scrutinized, evaluated, found wanting, and rejected. They felt they were being attacked for a public display of bad taste.

Tom’s negative opinion quashed Harry and Louise’s self-esteem, causing them to doubt themselves. It caused them to get sucked into and become captive of Tom’s pit of negative emotion. Once there, they were caught in a whirlpool of conflicting, painful feelings. Tom didn’t need to barrage them with hateful words, give them withering looks, or use a disappointed tone of voice. What he was suggesting, overall, was that they didn’t measure up. For many, just the hint of this leaves you feeling stunned, insulted, hurt, depressed, and rejected.

It doesn’t matter if the criticism is presented in a positive or negative fashion. It doesn’t matter whether it’s constructive or unproductive. When youre on the receiving end, you feel the same. You often feel attacked. Maybe it dredges up painful recollections of beng one-down with critical parents or rebuked by teachers.

As a result, you often tend to go on negative emotional autopilot. You may respond by exploding, becoming silent, turning red, crying, or trying to escape. You look for strategies to protect yourselvf and minimize the hurt. But if you’re going to find a way to respond to criticism so that you feel better about yourself, you have to get off emotional autopilot first. Youhave to switch from feeling mode to thinking mode, from subjectivity to objectivity.

Of course, this isn’t as easy as it may sound. It takes practice. It requires you to put up a mental hand to say "stop" so you can step back from the situation - step back from the defensiveness and the denial of real, imagined, or suggested error. In stepping back you need to look at what the person is really saying. For example, Tom sounded as if he didn’t like the color. Harry might have made the observation to Tom for his confirmation or disconfirmation: "You sound as if you don’t like the color."

You then need to determine whether there may be even a grain of truth in wa=hat the person has said. For example, Harry and Louise know they have picked a legitimate color and that there are other authentic Victorians in the neighborhood which have similar trim decoration. Louise might have agreed with the element of truth Tom expressed but asserted what she knew to be true: "It’s true the color is out of the ordinary for non-Victorians. Traditional Victorians, like this one and others in the neighborhood, do use a different palette of colors."

With respect tot the comment about splatters, Harry and Louise could see that their paint had created some abstract art around on of the windows. They could acknowledge that they hadn’t been as neat as they could have been. Harry might agree with Tom that they hadn’t been perfect: "Yeah, you’re right. We do a few spots to clean up."

In responding to Tom in this way, Harry and Louise didn’t let Tom push their buttons. They distinguished the truth of what he was saying from the arbitrary assignment of wrong behavior. By distancing themselves, they helped keep control of the interaction, keeping it from escalating. They also began training themselves to be comfortable with their errors, where they occurred, and separating their behaviors from someone’s label of them.

To learn to deal effectively with criticism, we need to:

1. Not deny, become defensive, or counterattack

2. Agree with any element of truth, agree in principle or with probabilities. Respond with a logical statement ("yes, you may be right" or "That’s true, the color is different" or "No, there aren’t a lot of house on this block with different color trim"). This forces you to listen to exacly what the critic is saying, not what we think is implied. When you don’t place interpretations on the criticism, you can strip it of its emotion and implied right-or-wrong. You can restate it in terms of its core behavior.

3.. Agree with the critic because it defuses the criticism. That is, the critic hears s/he is being listened to and likely chooses to believe you are accpting what they are saying. But in fact, what you are really accepting is that grain of truth or probability of a grain of truth in what they have said.

4. Acknowledge that you do make errors and let others know you do without losing your dignity and self-respect. It’s important to look at the mistaken behavior as detached from any associated guilt. You don’t want to seek "forgiveness" ("Tom, I’m sorry if the color offends you. We’ll change it tomorrow") or deny or defend the error ("Tom, there are no splatters" or "We did it to see if we could get you to comment on it").

Everyone makes big and little mistakes all the time. It’s a fact of life and part of the learning process. So when these things are brought to your attention, you need to admit the mistake and make an assertion about it. For example, Tom commented that Harry hadn’t secured the ladder. Harry could have said, "When, that was careless. I could have really pinched my fingers if it slipped." Again, this type of response defuses what the critic says. It can also be used repeatedly with each thing the critic says until the critic tires of the game.

5. Encourage others to be less critical and manipulative by prompting them to further criticize you in a special way. Using a low-key manner, you can inquire what precisely they mean ("I don’t understand. What is it about my using this color that’s bad?" or "What makes you think the color is bad?" or "Let’s take a look at what I’m doing that bothers you")

6. Inquire further about what else they think you’ve done wrong ("What else is wrong with out painting the house?" or "What else am I doing that bothers you?"). By  persistently asking for more information, you push your critic to be more asserting in expressing what is really bothering them. This enables you to get teh perceived problem out in the open and deal with it.

7. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. then practice these different types of approaches in different situations having a template of phrases to deal with criticism makes it easier for you to step outside your emotions to deal with it. When you can keep your critic at arm’s length, you are asserting yourself. You are not letting anyone manipulate your emotions or define your reality for you. You are the one in control of the interaction and yourself. This can significantly decrease conflicts and  increase your self-esteem and self-confidence.

And always remember, "No one appreciates the value of constructive criticism more thoroughly than the one who’s giving it."