What do you do if your confidence is shaken by criticism and feedback?

Understanding and accepting emotions is a vital skill. More importantly, mastering how to navigate them is crucial. When you invest time and energy into a project, discovering errors or facing critique can be disheartening and may dent your confidence. This is the moment to acknowledge and regulate your emotions. By mentally separating criticism from your work and extracting the truth within it, you acknowledge your imperfections as a human. Rather than viewing them as mistakes, consider them as opportunities for growth and a fresh perspective to enhance your work. These challenges fuel your drive for improvement.

Toxic, negative people like giving their opinions on everything and everyone, even if their opinion isn’t asked for. These people don’t have your best interests at heart, they don’t want to see you succeed and be happy. They want to keep you a level below themselves, their worry is that you start believing in yourself, your confidence will grow, your self image and self worth will increase, and you will rise above them. Which will make them more uncomfortable as they will have to get out of their comfort zone and become accountable and better. Find people that will encourage and help you grow. The ones who have your best interests at heart. Listen and learn from them in other words mirror them.

You want to make sure you fully understand the feedback, criticism and/or problem so you can make the appropriate changes. If you feel the information you have been given is vague or confusing ask questions. Asking questions until you fully understand will not only help you come up with solutions but it shows the other party that you care. Asking questions and making sure you have full comprehension can lead to massive growth and learning. Seeking clarity right a way also saves time. You can be sure you are correcting the right issues and not wasting time on the wrong things.

Remember all feedback and criticism can be used to learn and grow. When you receive negative feedback and criticism take the time to reflect on it; even if you do not agree with it. If you take the time to honestly reflect you will most likely find some truth in it. Do not be extremely hard on yourself. Determine what has been working well and what needs to change. Look at feedback and criticism as opportunities no road blocks. The more you are able to do this the less negative feedback and criticism will stall you.

So after some honest reflection you are realizing that the feedback has a lot of truth to it. There is no reason to be down on yourself. This is meant to be a learning experience and meant to help you grow. Ask yourself what needs to change to prevent the same thing from happening again in the future. Is it an easy solution such as waking up 10 minutes earlier so you can get to work earlier? Does it require more effort and time, such as maybe taking some educational courses to learn more about a certain subject? Whatever it is, make sure you keep the tasks manageable and goals realistic. Also, if possible you may want to check back (sincerely) in with the person you received feedback from to see if they have noticed any improvement.

You have to remember that some people will criticize everything you do, regardless of if its right a wrong. These people will normally have nothing good to say. They are always watching you, to find the next thing they can criticize you on. Do not get caught up on them. These people are usually very unhappy with their own situations and it helps them feel better. Find a way to let their criticism rollover your shoulders. I like to "take a breath, and blow it a way." I take a deep breath in, and then I push all the air out of my lungs. That is how long I give myself to dwell on that. Once I push all the air out I am done and moving on.