Criticism
My dictionary tells me that criticism is, among other things, analyzing and judging works or passing judgment on works. The works involved can be anything: a book, a play, a song or any other activity. Sometimes we are the critics, sometimes we receive the criticism, but criticism is part of all of our lives.
The issue is not whether we receive criticism but how we react. Some of us become upset, questioning our own work or abilities, feeling obliged to defend ourselves against the critic. Some even become so concerned about criticism that they can't complete anything, for fear of the criticism. More productive is to begin with our own analysis of the criticism. In what respects was the criticism accurate and in what respects inaccurate? Has the critic correctly identified a flaw in our work? Has the critic pointed the way to improvement in our work? Has the critic, whether deliberately or inadvertently, demonstrated the value of our work.
Criticism can be intended to upset us, to slow us down, to throw us off our stride. It can also be intended to help us, to improve our work, to enable us to proceed more efficiently. While we may, rightly, be suspicious of the former kind of criticism, in either case, we can learn from the criticism. If we approach it correctly, we can find help in even the most destructive of criticism.
I've found that if we ignore our critics' motivations and try to take what lessons we can we accomplish two goals. We avoid upsetting ourselves, avoid interrupting our work, avoid losing confidence in ourselves, and we learn things, if not about the work itself, about how others view our work. Don't be upset, use criticism as the starting point for analysis, and learn as much as you can. In that way, all criticism will be welcome and it will never hurt us. And, by the way, self-criticism may be the most objective and most helpful criticism of all, so beat the other critics to the punch and use self-criticism as the basis for self-improvement.
10-30-06
2006 Archives 2005 Archives 2004 Archives 2003 Archives 2002 Archives 2001 Archives