Criticism feels bad.
Despite this rather well-known fact, criticism remains one of the best shortcuts for improvement. Without someone to tell us where we could improve at something, we might spend hours, days, or even years trying to figure out the same answers for ourselves.
Today, we’ve decided to take steps to ensure we can all do a better job of appreciating these shortcuts when they appear, rather than reacting defensively and rejecting the lesson.
You’re probably not as good at taking criticism as you could be.
See? That wasn’t so bad. Now let’s take that criticism and make it work for us instead of against us.
Things mentioned in this episode:
This episode is sponsored by:
- Skillshare — with over 20,000 courses in a wide range of different skills, Skillshare can help you take things to the next level. Get started with 2 weeks of unlimited learning for just 99¢ at Skillshare.com/cig.
Other things we mentioned:
- 10 Things We’d Tell Our 18-Year-Old Selves (Ep. 213)
- ChoosingBeggars subreddit
- Hardy Fowler’s Digital Painting course on Skillshare
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
- Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
- LessWrong’s The Lens That Sees Its Flaws article
- Tom’s Backflip video on Instagram
Want more cool stuff? You can find all sorts of great tools at my Resources page.
Timestamps:
- 0:01:58 – Initials thoughts on being able to take criticism
- 0:09:11 – Don’t be ashamed of your old work
- 0:14:43 – Judging the intent and validity of a criticism
- 0:24:15 – Handling criticism while retaining your original vision
- 0:27:08 – Sponsor: Skillshare (Learning new skills)
- 0:28:38 – Being open to the possibility of learning from anyone
- 0:31:56 – Making your content more intuitive to your users
- 0:37:18 – Being less emotional when dealing with criticism
- 0:48:38 – Recap and conclusion
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