How To Overcome The Fear Of Being Criticized

Have you ever felt criticized? How did you feel? Perhaps you have developed a fear of being criticized in the wake of a similar episode. Being criticized is not a dish of good taste for anyone, especially when the criticism is bad.

And there are different types of criticism. Not all reviews are negative. There are constructive criticisms that help us to improve different aspects of ourselves, but even this type of criticism may not like us or catch us at a time when we are not particularly receptive.

The fear of being criticized

Most of the time, when we receive a criticism, we experience it as a personal attack. Some people experience it as a hurtful, embarrassing comment. This makes us feel hurt or defensive.

Have you ever stopped to think about the objective of the person when you said that? If when we receive a criticism we do not stop to think why that person is so angry and to what extent they are right or wrong, we will become defensive. We won’t get anything out of it.

If we calm down and clarify the matter, we may see that we can modify something in our behavior that has not been very appropriate. Then, criticism will help us learn and maintain a good relationship with that person. Thus, you will stop feeling fear of being criticized.

On the other hand, it can happen that the person is wrong and has a point of view that we do not share. If we do not express it in an assertive way, we can give in everything for fear of criticism. Then, we will be promoting manipulation by the other person and our feelings of low self-esteem.

Accepting criticism properly is advantageous

The first step to losing the fear of being criticized is precisely learning to be criticized. This is achieved, first, by learning to react calmly to criticism. The benefits of reacting calmly to criticism are as follows:

• We learn to control negative emotions.
• We do not feel attacked.
• We learn to separate it from our self-esteem. A criticism is just an opinion.

By being calm and reacting calmly to criticism, we can better respond to it. The advantages are numerous :

• We can evaluate if the criticism is good or if it is an attempt at manipulation.
• If it is good, we can learn from it and not spoil the relationship with that person.

• If it is good, but the person has not known how to do it, we will be able to understand it and show the way to say things to ourselves.
• The criticism could be an attempt at manipulation. In this case, we frustrate the person by being calm and relaxed.
• By not reacting angrily, we do not show our weak, sensitive points.
• We assert ourselves, we are the ultimate judges of our conduct. If we have made a mistake, rectifying is wise. When we have not made a mistake, we calmly reaffirm our position. If the other person continues, we do not enter the rag.
• It allows us to get out of a situation that, in most cases, becomes very unpleasant.

What negative thoughts interfere with facing criticism?

There are a series of thoughts that do not help us in the least when it comes to facing criticism. If I change these thoughts, I will start to stop being afraid of being criticized.

Thoughts about oneself

“I’ve already screwed up again, what a disaster! What a shame, I did it wrong! ”. When I think about this, I have the belief that I must always be competent and that if I am wrong I am worthless.

In this case, the rational thought would be the following: “Have I done it wrong? Well, first let’s see if I was really wrong. If so, I have the right to be wrong. How is a mistake going to turn me into an invalid person? It just makes me what I am: human. “

Thoughts about the situation

“What an uncomfortable, humiliating situation. I can’t stand it, I have to go ”. The belief behind this statement is that things should always be easy and comfortable. They should go out the way I want. Rational thinking would be as follows: “The situation is uncomfortable, but I can’t stand it? What is better, to flee or to face the situations? It is an uncomfortable situation … but listen to it, you can learn from the situation.

Thoughts about the other

“He is ridiculing me, he wants to expose me, he does it to attack me, he loves to catch my mistakes.” The belief behind these thoughts is that there are bad people who deserve to be punished. Others should always be kind and give me what I need. If not, they are worth nothing.

This thought can be exchanged for a more rational one. You could say to yourself, for example: “How can I know their intention? I cannot read the thoughts of others. What if he does it to annoy? If so, sometimes humans are not as good as would be desirable. I’m not perfect either. “

As we can see, the fear of being criticized can be overcome. To do this, we must first accept being criticized and react calmly. Later, we will have to change certain thoughts about criticism.