Here is how you can benefit from a Criticism

Recently two of my friends were at loggerheads. One person criticized another one's Art Work. The second one challenged the first one to prove his allegations. Both were annoyed at each other. All this made me very sad.

I feel most people don't know how to handle criticism. I read somewhere that an enemy who criticizes you is always better than a friend who praises you! Yes, a pat in the back will make you feel happy, support your ego & put you on cloud nine. But, a criticism, if taken positively, can do you a lot of good too. A wise and mature person can ignore the fallacies and pick out the underlying valuable suggestions. Here is how you can benefit from a criticism:

When you do a thing or create an art piece, you yourself should become a critic and analyze
it very impassively and unemotionally. You can realize all the negative and positive aspects of your work if you do so. It makes you improve yourself and gets you ready to face and answer properly to a criticism.

When somebody criticizes you, you should never react immediately and get defensive. First try to think whether there is any truth in it and whether the person who is criticizing you understands you and your point of view and work properly. The person might be ignorant about the circumstances, situation and background in which you did your work. If you explain things to him, & if he tries to understand you along with the context, it reduces the significance of the criticism and makes others respect you. On the other hand if you are criticized badly for a very small mistake, don't get angry - and if you can't control your anger wait for your anger to subside and then react with dignity by accepting your mistake.

Remember you are criticized for an action of yours, not "You" as a person. So you should never allow it to affect your ego or self pride. You should not allow it to interfere with your communication skills, which are very important and necessary on the road to success. If somebody is criticizing you just because he or she is jealous of your achievements or finds you "soft" just because you don't argue with force, you can show some firmness but do it politely and then try to keep a distance from that person if he is bothering you more.

There are constructive criticisms too. They will be used by your parents, friends and all your well wishers. This type of criticisms allow you to identify errors and take corrective measures.They will improve your personality. So you should never react negatively to these criticisms. You should accept your mistakes, even apologize if your deeds caused inconvenience to others and thank the people who made these criticisms for trying to correct you.

And don't forget to smile when you meet your critique in person. It will knock him off balance!

All this is easy to say but difficult to do. However, it works! It also increases your reputation as a calm-level-headed person and the best part of it all is you will never have enemies!