Hey Ryan
Great tips here as always. The truth-lie one is particularly important and the example you gave about your own post was a good one. There was nothing in that title to suggest it was any sort of tutorial on writing an ebook so the criticism really didn’t make any sense. It can be hard to deal with sometimes because we can get very attached to our work, and we have our own insecurities about what we are doing, and the criticism triggers it. Learning to overcome criticism is crucial or it can stop us in our tracks completely.

Hey Ryan,

Great post here.

First off, that came straight out of left field, thank you so much for the mention. Wasn’t expecting that at all and was honestly shocked. Nonetheless, thank you.

Now onto your post.

I can’t remember who I was talking to a few weeks ago on their blog but the discussion was about negative commenters and criticism. When I first started out, I would get so upset about being criticized because I not only took it personally, but I thought it was unjust.

I felt as though they were criticizing just for the sake of criticizing. And you know what I learned through the last little while, that’s exactly what they do.

No matter what you do, how good or great, there will always be someone/people to criticize. It’s just in their nature. What I’ve learned to do it use it as a learning tool. I can never make those that criticize happy but I don’t let it get to me anymore.

I look at criticism as a blessing now because like you said, “If you haven’t been criticized you can’t appreciate:

Being praised
Being fully clear on what you’re doing
The strength of your belief system”

It makes no sense to get upset when someone criticizes, just take it with a grain of salt, follow that tactic that you shared regarding reading slowly and learn from it.

Great post.

– Andrew

P.S. I didn’t know that post was supposed to be a “How-To” or step-by-step post lol. Based on the title, “12 Lessons I Learned from Selling My eBook”, seems pretty obvious what the post is about to me.

It’s simple jealousy, if you ask me, why people tend to criticize. Often they are not happy with some aspect of their own life, and feel the urge to elevate themselves by stomping on someone else.

It’s funny, too, how criticism can lead one to make such a good friend, too… and a little surprising! (I’m sure Ms. A. Smith doesn’t want to make friends with the person who has been impersonating her lately!)

FYI, I love the card, too. How did you create it? (Don’t keep your secrets to yourself, Ryan! If you’re truly someone who likes helping others, then please share! Thanks!)

You’re right Ryan, that is great video quality. Even the audio is pretty impressive since you’re outside.

That’s great advice, all of it, and a very healthy way of looking at what might cause some people to obsess over. I like the Uncle Kracker saying, “I ain’t gonna let it wreck my day” (Good To Be Me).

You know, I was just listening to Cliff Ravenscraft’s (Podcast Answer Man) latest podcast, it was actually a replay of last week’s keynote speech, where he reads a horrible iTunes review someone left about him. I don’t know if you like podcasts but it’s so hilarious. I’ll tweet you the link just in case you want to listen.

I have a very “loud” yellow shirt that says “Haters Gonna Hate” and that’s so true. Like you said, however, a little self evaluation based on potential truth isn’t always a bad thing. As long as we don’t allow it to send us off running away or let it wreck our day. 😉

Criticism can be taken many ways. Sometimes of course the criticism is warranted and if you can take a step back and evaluate what is actually being said then you can make appropriate changes.

For instance on my first blog about party planning, I had someone review my blog. I had put a lot of hard work into it and I thought she would say it was awesome. The feedback she came back with was not so awesome. She said it looked outdated and dull….not a great start! She also said that the visual effects bored her (certainly not great for a party site). Initially I was upset, thinking to myself, but I just paid $20 for this premium theme…..lol. But after taking a cold hard look at it I realised what she was saying. It prompted me to go back to basics, buy a Genesis theme AND a premium skin, change the layout etc etc etc. It now looks like a party blog that uplifts you, not depresses you!

On the other hand criticism can be completely unwarranted. Sometimes this comes from people that are just clearly unhappy with where they are at, or even jealous with where you are at, and the only way to resolve this is to place an attack. It is at those times that again you have to step back, look at what they are saying and decipher where it is coming from.

At the end of the day there is no point in getting upset or aggravated with criticism. Instead we can learn from it, and actually make our blogs stronger because of it.

Very thought provoking Ryan. Tweeting through Triberr of course 🙂

Hello Ryan,

Another fantastic post. Dealing with criticism use to be a tough thing for me to deal with. I’ve often had a normal knee-jerk reaction to criticism, but working in the service industry has meant that I’ve had to deal with criticism fairly often… and had to learn to process it correctly. I used to dread feedback forms, despite the fact that mine were usually excellent.

I’ve found the best way to deal with it is to sit back and think to myself how correct they are. I still feel a bit stung by it, but I’ve learned to use criticism in positive ways to improve.

But at the same time, one has to be realistic and be certain that you don’t take the negativity on board. Some criticism may be totally correct, but maybe it isn’t worth fixing that specific thing. Nobody is perfect and so your advice of thinking it through and perhaps laughing at it may be a perfectly appropriate response.

One thing that I was taught as a tour guide was that one should actualy seek criticisim, not avoid it. Rather know what you’re doing wrong, rather than repeating mistakes. The critic may be a negative, sour person, but at least they have the balls to tell you. 99% of the people you deal with are way too nice to point these things out to you.

I have learned to fear apathy more than criticism. If nobody is telling you anything, you’re failing! If people are criticising, you know that you’re being noticed.

As for reading it slowly, I’ll have to try that one.

Cheers

I can deal with constructive criticism, destructive criticism not so much. Just depends on where the point of view of the person dishing it out.

“Posture of an earthworm” – sweet. I’ve had my own experiences with the Trolls and Haters and ended up writing my own post on the matter: http://bbqboy.net/travel-forums-101-dealing-trolls-haters-expats-uglies/.
As a commenter said, these people are like seagulls, ‘they fly in, shit all over your site, and then fly away’. You’re approach totally right – ignore it, laugh about it, and realize that they are probably miserable people.
Good post!
Frank (bbqboy)

I’ve learned to process criticism through through making the distinction of seeing the difference between a subjective Criticism and an objective criticism.

Most criticisms can usually be put into two categories – objective and subjective.

An objective criticism is when you are being criticized for failing to exhibit behavior that you yourself agreed to exhibit or vice versa.

For example: If you signed an employment contract and you agreed to report to work at 9:00 o’ clock every morning before Monday and Friday, and then after settling in and getting comfortable with the lay of the land, you start showing up at 9:10, 9:15, 9:30, and your boss criticizes you for that, that would be an objective criticism.

This is a valid criticism, an objective criticism.

When you agree never to smoke in one of your close friend’s residence or your parents residence and then they catch you smoking a cigar in the house, and they criticize you it, that’s an objective criticism.

Objective criticisms come when you’re being blasted for demonstrating behavior that you yourself promised not to perform.

What is a Subjective Criticism?

This is when someone criticizes you for behavior that they personally don’t care for.

Let’s say you’ve got a couple of friends who say that you eat too fast. And they criticize you for eating too fast. They might feel that way, but you’re fine with the pace at which you shovel food into your body.

That would be a subjective criticism.

People love criticizing you for an aspect of your behavior that they personally have problems with, that you personally don’t have a problem with.

Subjective criticisms could be focused on the type of clothes you wear, the fact that you talk too fast or too slow, drive a certain car “they” think you shouldn’t be driving, using language they don’t think you should be using, etc.

People are compelled to impose their personal rules and model of the world for how life should be onto you. You should never allow other people’s likes, dislikes, preferences, beliefs, attitudes, to affect how you behave, particularly if you’re satisfied with your behavior.

I’ve come to believe that it is a good idea to ignore most, if not all subjective criticisms directed your way.

What About Opinionated Insults?

These are just harsher variations of a subjective criticisms.

When people are hurling opinionated insults at you, they’re just trying to push your buttons and see if they can get a rise out of you. And once they know that they can push your buttons, they’re gonna keep doing it. Over and over and over again.

This is why you ignore subjective criticisms and opinionated insults.

Marva Collins, a woman I deeply admire, is was introduced to me through an interview Tony Robbins did with her back in the early 90’s.

She caught Tony’s attention because of the fantastic results she was achieving as a school teacher with the public school system with the youth in the inner city of Chicago and then in her own school later on.

In the interview she talks about dealing with criticism. She feels that people who criticize her have good taste for having chosen her to criticize.

When kids come to her saying another kid has called them a name, she says, “Is your name ‘Stupid’? Then why are you answering to it? I’m beginning to think that’s your name because you’re responding to it?” and then she goes on to reinforce to the child that by reacting to people’s opinionated insults, they’re setting themselves up for massive failure.

This is a very different approach than simply punishing the child who was doing the name calling. It’s reality based. Out in the world, you don’t have a teacher you run to. You’re the only one standing guard at the door of your mind.

In the big picture, opinionated insults don’t mean anything.

They mean nothing. You see a lot of men and women letting opinions and insults affect how they behave towards others and how they express themselves to others and in affect how they carry themselves without purpose throughout their life.

Giving credence to subjective criticisms and opinionated insults creates an addiction to wanting to be liked by everyone.

The truth is, you cannot and will not be liked by everyone so don’t even try.

And I’ll leave you with a quote I love relative to criticism and what you do with it . . .

“The irony of popularity is when you specifically try to be liked, more often than not, you’re not. But when you really don’t care about being liked, you find that people just adore and love you.”

Eddie Murphy

This was an excellent post, Ryan.

It’s sad when people resort to trolling & putting others down.
I’ve experienced my fair share of trolls, but the truth it–they’re the minority.

Focusing on what the ‘nay-sayers’ think isn’t important. Because the positive
people amount to more than the negative!

-Josh

It is sad that most people seem to be born with mission to make other people feel like sh*t. I feel you. I know how it is to be cyberbullied online. My works on Thought Catalog receive the worst kinds of comments. But, I do what I must, I listen to those who give me objective criticisms and comments. I focus on my core audience and grow my craft continuously. With practice, I can now filter out the noise and focus on the voices that matter most. 🙂

Hi Ryan,
I’ve just saved this to my pininterest board for future reference. I care way too much about what people think. It’s something that I’ve been challenged about over the last few months and I’m taking steps to work on that. I’ve managed to share a life decision that I’m considering with several people and not ask what their opinion was about it! It’s not that it’s wrong to ask for people’s opinions, I did ask some people, but actually sometimes we just know what we need to do don’t we? So people can give their opinion and they might be entitled to it (or not, if it’s a very personal decision!) but we have to be true to ourselves. Such a freeing journey.
I realise that caring too much about what people think has been a reason why I’ve chosen (not going to use any ridiculous excuses here!) to not go as far with my blog as I could have done. It’s also a reason why I haven’t blogged about some topics that I know that I need to be blogging about. So, that will change. I know that some people may not like it, but there is freedom in being authentic. Each to their own.
I’ve just read one of your ebooks (for newbie bloggers) so I can just hear your voice saying that meditation is the way to go on this! 😉 I agree. As a Christian, perhaps my focus on that is slightly different, but really it’s all about coming back to that authentic place isn’t it? It’s about coming back to the very essence of who we are. I also find that journalling is very helpful for that and so is writing poetry. I may blog to the world (or at least the part of it that will read my blog!) but my journal is for me. Often the two will connect.
I guess the thing with blogging is to be clear on the difference between constructive criticism and that which is just nasty. It sounds like you’ve had some great constructive criticism over the years. I’ve had some too and would love more of that. The other criticism may sting at first (we’re human!) but when we know who we are and what our purpose is (in bloggin or in life) then I guess it’s easier to brush off. I’m still learning about this. It’s been quite a journey.

Before I end, can I just ask what social media sharing buttons you use? I really like them! Is it a plugin? I like the idea of them being at the side throughout the article. It makes it so much easier to share. I recently changed my theme and am still setting it up exactly how I want it.

Thanks for the encouragement that I got from this article. Now to put it into practise! Have a great day in paradise