Techniques for Accepting Criticism

When receiving criticism, try to be: accepting, open-minded, and willing to seek clarity.

Key Points

  • Accepting that you are imperfect will help you learn from your mistakes.

  • Be open-minded to the fact that others may see something that you do not; allow for the fact that others may be right, and use that possibility to look within yourself.

  • When in doubt, seek clarity by taking notes and asking questions.

Key Terms

  • Clarity: The state or measure of being clear, either in appearance, thought, or style; lucidity.

Accepting any criticism, even effective and potentially helpful, can be difficult. Ideally, effective criticism is positive, specific, objective, and constructive. There is an art to being truly effective with criticism; a critic can have good intentions but poor delivery, for example, "I don't know why my girlfriend keeps getting mad when I tell her to stop eating so many french fries; I'm just concerned about her weight! " For criticism to be truly effective, it must have the goal of improving a situation without using hostile language or involving personal attacks.


Receiving criticism is a listening skill that is valuable in many situations throughout life: at school, at home, and in the workplace. Since it is not always easy to do, here are three things that will help to receive effective criticism gracefully:

  1. Accept that you are not perfect. If you begin every task thinking that nothing will ever go wrong, you are fooling yourself. You will make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from mistakes.

  2. Be open-minded to the fact that others may see something that you do not. Even if you disagree with the criticism, others may be seeing something you are not even aware of. If they say that you are negative or overbearing, and you do not feel that you are, well, you might be and are just not able to see it. Allow for the fact that others may be right, and use that possibility to look within yourself.

  3. Seek clarity about aspects of a critique that you are not sure of. If you do not understand the criticism, you will repeat the same mistakes. Take notes and ask questions.
Sometimes it is easier said than done, but receiving effective criticism offers opportunities to see things differently, improve performance, and learn from mistakes.