How to accept criticism and remain emotionally intelligent

Welcome back, everyone. This week, I would like to share how to accept criticism and remain emotionally intelligent. As most people know, criticism is a hard pill to swallow, and being able to swallow that pill with any semblance of grace can seem impossible to most.

Yet, it is a must to aid yourself in staying in a state of inner peace and balance. Therefore, this week I want to share the steps you can take to achieve this goal, no matter what level of nastiness might be used against you.

Allow me to give you a full-proof weapon for handling any critical situation with grace and emotional intelligence. Now, if you are ready, let’s take our next step toward becoming positively improved.

Listen –

Listening can only be done when you are willing to drop your defenses and open your ears. However, to reach a place where you are ready to listen, you must first detach any emotions that tell you that you must be offended by this person or take anything personally.

Remember, you always have a choice about how you will respond or react to anything or anyone. However, If you take the time to step back from your emotions, drop your defenses, and listen to the other person, you might begin to understand why they think or feel as they do.

And if you do not understand, then instead of getting upset or emotional, simply take the time to ask questions to gain more clarity.

Understanding –

Understanding always starts with a question or ten, depending on the situation. By taking the time to ask questions, you are telling the other person that you do, in fact, care about their point of view. In addition, you tell them you want to understand and potentially resolve any issues.

Taking this approach and allowing the other person to understand that you want to understand them will deescalate the situation and could even help the person who is critical of you take a step back and rethink their views or opinions.

And if not, then at least you have learned something you might not have known about yourself before. Even better, you will understand and learn about that person and the lens through which they see. 

Learning –

See, when you understand the person and understand their mind better, you will also begin to see how to handle or approach people like them. Let alone you will also be able to see whether that person actually sees you or is just projecting something about themselves or their experiences onto you.

By taking the time to learn and understand, you will also allow yourself to know what steps should be taken or if actions are needed at all. It is not always required to take steps to resolve the issues.

In more cases than not, the issues are simply the other person’s; all you can do is understand that they feel or think the way they do. If so, you can move on to the following steps. 

Engage –

Now, when it comes to engaging, it is really all about mirroring and mimicking the other person.

I mean, you pause and repeat their words as you understand them. Now make sure to do this in a respectful tone.

Doing this allows the other person to know that they were heard, and if somehow you didn’t fully understand what they were saying, they will have the opportunity to correct or rephrase what they would like you to understand.

By engaging in this way, you open the door to clarity and complete understanding, along with de-escalating the situation further and giving the other person the opportunity to rethink their point of view again.

 Have Gratitude –

Now that you have taken the time to step back from your emotions and listen, learn, and fully understand, all that is left for you to do is thank that person for sharing their thoughts and opinions.

There is no reason to take what they have said to you personally because you recognize that this is just this person’s feelings and opinions. However, allowing them to share their views allows you to learn something you can improve on or how to deal with people who do not see you clearly.

Then you can navigate almost any potentially confrontational situation by ending it with a sign of gratitude. Even bullies have difficulty acting out when you are being kind or showing signs of appreciation.

Final thoughts:

Now that we have come to the end of this week’s newsletter. I would like to end with one final note. No matter what your situation is, you are always given a choice. You can choose to react with emotion and take what the other person thinks or feels personally, which in turn is like you giving your power away, or you can choose to recognize that everyone has the right to feel and think the way they choose to, but how they think or feel is more about them than you. When you see things through this lens or perspective, you have no reason to react but to respond with an understanding and kind heart. The choice is always yours.

I hope you gained some new or valuable knowledge from this week’s article. If you know someone who you think would enjoy this information, please feel free to share this with them. Also, if you want to share your thoughts on this topic, please do so in the comment section.

Thank you for taking the time to take this step with me toward becoming positively improved. Until next week, Namaste