Feedback Thoughts

Being critiqued is always painful. It cannot be helped, when you think about it. You are lowering your defenses to allow an outside force to pick apart your work, whether for better or worse. Criticism, for some, is easier to take than others. I certainly fall under the latter. Coming out of high school, I was a perfectionist. I came to college with this closed mindset. Looking back, I do not know if it was due to egoism or low self esteem. I either thought that those who critiqued me knew nothing about anything, or I was too afraid to have somebody tell me that my work was anything less than perfect. I quickly learned that, in order to succeed and to improve in my studies, I had to learn how to accept constructive criticism. 

In the "Eight things students should do when they make a mistake" article, number four of the list states that we should learn from our mistakes and to better ourselves from it. I am a firm believer in the old adage of, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," and also believe that others should take it to heart. It encourages people to be unafraid of at least trying and that failure isn't the worse thing in the world.

Another thing that kept me from accepting criticism in the beginning of my college career was the sense of inferiority that I felt alongside many of my peers. I couldn't help but compare myself to the smartest people in my classes. In "The Psychology of Comparison and How to Stop", it tells us to exactly not to do that. The article talks about how, through human nature, we are all born to be competitive, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, once it begins to affect ones self-esteem, it becomes an unhealthy obsession. One saying that truly stood out to me in the article was "Don't Worry, You're Human." It teaches us that the only person that you should try to outshine everyday is yourself. 

(How I use to take any form of criticism:

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