How I Deal With Criticism

Nobody who does more than you will criticize you. Why the fear of judgment steals your potential and how to respond to hate.

You will never be criticized by someone who does more than you. The people who criticize you are the ones doing less than you.

So many people go through life paralyzed by the fear that others will judge and criticize them.

People are afraid to start a blog because they care what strangers on the internet and their own friends will say. Many are terrified of stepping onto a stage because they think they’ll look ridiculous and won’t be able to express their thoughts clearly.

There are dozens of examples like this, but very often a person lives their life on the lowest setting, realizing just a couple of percent of their potential, because their fear of being judged and rejected by others is so strong.

Yet you will never be criticized by people who work in the same field and have gone further in it. Those people know the path perfectly well, they know what it’s like to start from absolute zero, and they respect your first modest steps.

Instead, you’ll find plenty of people who have never even tried to do what you do — and those are exactly the ones who show up with toxic criticism and poisonous remarks.

Think about it. A person who could spend the time of their life on anything at all decides that a good idea — one that will lift their mood — is to write an insulting comment about you. What kind of hard, tragic life do you have to be living for that to feel enjoyable?

Can you imagine any well-adjusted person spending even one second of their life trying to hurt someone else? I don’t know people like that. They simply don’t exist. Reasonable people are busy building their own lives, not trying to sting somebody.

So the next time you run into hate or stupid criticism, instead of thinking about how much it hurts and stings, think about the unhappy people who are writing and saying it to you. You may feel genuine compassion for them.

Of course there are situations where criticism is reasonable, constructive and entirely fair. But that kind of feedback doesn’t sting — it helps you move even faster.

Do you agree that so many people are held back by the fear of what others will say and think?