This article was a result of a recent event that I was removed from a chat group, and at the same time another person was also removed from the chat group. Why? Because we did not share the same opinion and as some others on a topic. I made few critics on something, and gave suggestions to improve it. But it was not taken the way I wanted. This chat group is ‘supposed’ to be an information sharing, and helping group, but being removed from it made me think on how people react to criticisms or different opinions.

When I was starting out as a young professional, I had no idea about myself. I mean, I did not have strong self-awareness. I was not aware that I was agitated by certain things easily, I was not aware that I felt offended by certain words, I was not aware that my certain behaviors were not helping to solve a problem. So at work, I had a quite difficult time. But I was being me, the young girl who just joined workforce in a foreign country, in a foreign company. Only later, I had the opportunity to be introduced to the concept of mentorship. Then the more books I read about self-development, the more I realized that, self-awareness is so important. And with the help of a mentor, I can improve myself and be better. The mentor can be a person in your life that you know, can be a person that you don’t know but have a positive impact on you, and the mentor can even be the authors of books. So self-awareness is the first step to self-development.

I started to be more aware of myself, my personalities and my behaviors and my influence on others. It is like a waking moments. I noticed that I always took criticism negatively, or even defensively. I would think the person who criticised me is my enemy, and I would dislike him or her. Once I was called into a meeting room by a senior director, she is very experience with managing and coaching young professionals. She called me into the room, and asked me “Why are you later for the meeting?”. I was late for an important meeting where there were lots of super senior executives, and I simply remembered the time wrongly. I gave her my honest answer. She then critised that I should have a better attitude, I should be better prepared and so on. I felt my heart was speeding, because it was hard for me take on criticism so directly. But she led the conversation to another direction, she noticed my nervousness and told me in an open manner, that she was not trying to make me feel bad, she tried to help me to improve. By giving direct criticism, I know what areas for improvement. Taking feedbacks and act on it, is the best way to grow! I suddenly saw the ‘real face’ behind criticism. It is not against me, it is for me. If someone is coming from the right place, giving me feedbacks or even just criticism, it is a red light for me, that I need to pay attention to that, and I can improve myself.

From that day onwards, I seek for feedbacks from people I trust and improve myself bit by bit.

On the other hand, I was also wondering, how people react to criticism will have a huge impact on how they feel and how they handle things. In the first example, I was removed from the chat group, because they didn’t like to hear criticisms, even though I gave a suggestion and not really critize in an impolite way, people still don’t like it. It is a shame because the suggestions I gave are usually what people paid me for — — consulting service.

On the final note, I hope this article can shed some lights on how you would face criticism now. Take every negative comment (only if this person doesn’t have malicious intention) as an opportunity for you to improve and be a better person.