Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Welcome back to Success with Srini. Today on the podcast, I want to extend my thought from two days ago. Two days ago, on the podcast, I talked about how negative people are the fact of life, we can’t avoid them. We need to learn how to deal with them, we need to strengthen ourselves. And I went through the whole rant. And somewhere along the way, I talked about criticism, and people being critical of us. But today, what I want to do is I want to extend that thought a bit more because criticism in itself needs a whole podcast episode. Maybe a seminar, maybe a workshop? So how do you deal with criticism? With elegance with grace? It’s hard. But how do you do it? Is there a strategy? And is there a technique?
Well, there are many strategies and many techniques, it all depends upon you and your desire, on how to go about it. But here is the truth, criticism is a part of life. So the more significant you become, you will be criticized. The more accomplishments you have, you will be criticized. There will be critics everywhere watching you. So the best way to deal with them is to learn how to deal with them. So you become a student of criticism, that’s all there is to this. So the more you learn, the easier it becomes. So the more you experience, the easier it becomes.
So let’s talk about some strategies. The first and foremost is this, somebody saying something to you? The most important thing people react to, right? If I say something to you, you will react immediately. But why not react objectively, rather than reacting emotionally? So if you build objectivity into any act, the act itself becomes meaningful. So if objectivity is the only thing that will help us in every situation, why not build objectivity into the way we respond. So no emotions involved, you become objective, but the objective part is hard to get to that objective state instantaneously is hard. How do we do this? Well, the technique I talked about in the last podcast episode was breathing. Breathing is very powerful. It takes you to invert, talk about what it takes to invert, it gives you a little bit time and space and then allows you to react and when you react, now you’re reacting objectively. So you become calm when you breathe. But when you breathe also with all your senses, the energy goes inward. So the body is not reacting to anything that’s happening outside of you. At that moment, you take five or 10. And there’s a whole breathing technique to it. And I talked about the technique in the last episode. Once you take the time and breathe, then you start responding, chances are, your response will be more objective. So that’s where I would start I would start the first practice is to take a deep breath before you respond.
Now, once that part is done, the second strategy here is a question that you ask yourself, in your mind, is it possible that this person is right? Whoever is giving you the criticism? Is it possible that this person is right? Now the reason why you should ask this question is that nobody on this earth is perfect. You are not perfect. I’m not perfect, nobody’s perfect. Perfection is a myth. So as humans, we are individuals in the process of achieving perfection, but we will not we will have progress. But we can never ever become the ultimate form of perfection, that’s very difficult to change very difficultly to attain. So none of us are perfect. So if you agree to that statement, then the question comes is this, then this question is valid, which is, is it possible that this person could be right, could be correct. So if once you ask that question, it actually calms you down, mentally, to a good place. And it also opens up a possibility to legitimately take the criticism and I hope you are with me on this one. This is hard, but it’s doable.
Now, one other way to deal with this is to thank people, which is to appreciate you taking the time to thank them for thinking about this. Thank you for your feedback. Thank you for your words, and I’ll work on it. I’m going to talk Course and try to make the changes. So the two things happening here, you’re complimenting them, you’re also disarming them by simply saying thank you.
Then there’s also another strategy or another technique where you mentally move on. Regardless of whether the criticism is accurate or not, you just move on. And you see this celebrity do you see players, actors, you know, celebrities, you see them do this, which is right or wrong, they just move on. They don’t waste time to figure it out. And they don’t feel compelled to even respond to go to press conferences and after a game or have a movie or before the movie, and they don’t feel compelled to respond, because they just move on. If they made a mistake, they’ll move on. And they know that they made a mistake, but they don’t give enough time in their mind to whatever is coming at them. And if they realize that they made a mistake, they are going to tell themselves that, yeah, I’m going to make the change, and I’m going to work on it, I’ll have a different course of action next time around, but I need to move, I need to go from here, mentally.
Now, if sometimes, the criticism itself could be incorrect, okay. And if it’s incorrect, then they forget and move on. The bottom line is you got to move on. That’s the message. Okay? The more you think about it, the more you take it into your heart into the brain, the more energy goes away from you. So it’s kind of counterproductive at that level. Every time you successfully handle some criticism, you got to thank yourself. Because you now have defended yourself. Now you strengthen yourself. So in a way, you congratulate yourself. And you are building some control on yourself, and you’re evolving. That’s the growth we’ve talked about earlier. So there should be some level of celebration in your mind, every time you have successfully overcome or at least defended yourself, in the face of the critics hear the truth, criticism comes from all different sources.
Sometimes it’s right on your face, sometimes it’s through other people through your loved ones through in all kinds of media, it could come from multiple places, sometimes it comes all at once. So dealing with grace is hard, it’s difficult. But within every form of criticism that you get, there is always a small room for improvement. Whether it’s right or wrong, there is a small element of improvement, and there is always again. So as we say this in self-improvement, every interaction helps you to learn yourself a bit more. Likewise, criticism is also a form of interaction, which allows you to learn a little bit more about yourself. So these are some of the techniques and these are some that I personally have used. And several of my coaching clients have used it, there are more but this is this gives you a framework through which you should start looking into and depending upon it very well. You can adjust this, you should study more on this. But then all this is possible.
If you agree that criticism is a good self-improvement tool. It’s a tool for self-improvement if you take that’s the approach you take it in your mind. And that’s the belief that you carry yourself with, then all these things make sense. If not, this will not make any sense.
That’s all for now on this podcast. Hopefully, this is helpful. If it is, then let me know. Thank you for your messages. And I do get some messages from this podcast that I don’t talk about. And as much as I would like love to like to. But I’m thankful that some if not all of the podcast episodes are resonating with you. So thank you. Again, the more questions I get from you, the more I can acute myself, the more I can present myself, the more I can articulate myself and all that on this podcast. So please send me your questions or comments and of course rate the podcast and share it with your friends and family. So that’s all for now. You be wonderful wherever you are, and I will catch up with you tomorrow. Bye now.