Criticism means giving your personal opinion whether good or bad on any person, product, or something. The person who judges is known as a critic. When anyone says that a particular person is miserable, or after watching any movie if someone says it is good or bad, it is known as criticism. The word “Criticism” is generally considered unpleasant or unhealthy. There are mainly two types of Criticism: Constructive (Positive) or non-constructive (Negative). For an optimistic person, Criticism is just a path for improvement. For an egoistic person, Criticism is bad and they take it personally. The irony is everyone likes to criticize but no one likes to get criticized. Criticism is something that none like to face in their life. But there is, by default, a critic in every one of us.

I think Criticism is beneficial if it is done genuinely and for the improvement of the other person. If someone is criticizing just to put the opposite person down or to make them feel bad then that is not good criticizing. Hence everyone must adopt constructive criticism, which is very beneficial. For example: – Coach of a football team – He criticizes his players, points out their mistakes but his intention is to improve the game of the player and overall team so that they can win that game. Now if someone we don’t know personally or have just recently met criticizes us then we should not take it personally as the person does not know us so well. But we should definitely give a thought to his criticism and if the critic is correct, we should focus on improving that particular thing.

Criticism doesn’t help you in life but how you respond to it helps you in life. If you evaluate and accept the criticism and work on it to improve yourself, you will be nourished by criticism. But if you take it personally and let your Ego handle it & learn nothing from it then there won’t be any change in your life instead you will lose your confidence & self-belief, here you are not encouraged by criticism.

Now there is also one part of the criticism that is made to product/services. So this criticism can find fault and weakness which can be used positively by the manufacturer to improve their product/services. This is easy as there is no person involved directly who is being criticized. But this criticism helps the organizations to improve their quality or make changes in products/services which in long term leads to their Branding & Success.

Now coming back to Criticism where humans are involved, I feel the criticism is a form of communication. One should realize the power of choosing words while speaking so that you don’t hurt the other person but also let him skillfully know your feelings. Most successful people or management of MNCs have expertise in this skill already. They put their point in the right way which is understood by the employee and also he doesn’t feel put down or hurt.

If criticism isn’t constructive, it usually doesn’t work. If someone really has a point that can improve the situation or a person then he needs to put it in a respective and considerate manner and that’s the main purpose of criticism. One should be realistic and try to put feet in the shoes of others before criticizing the person.  People, in general, do not like to receive criticism. Hence, one should try to criticize the mistake or wrong things and should not target the person by calling out their name. One should encourage first and then criticize and also provide some recommendations or improvement plans, if possible.

Now, let’s turn our attention to negative or non-constructive criticism. It is tough facing this type of criticism. But some people do negative criticism due to hate, jealousy, etc. One must know the intention behind criticizing a person & if it is negative then we should not take it personally. I know this is simple to say but tough to implement but practice makes men and women perfect. So one should first examine whether it is positive or negative criticism. If found negative criticism is just due to hatred and jealousy then one should not take it personally and should move on. Because haters are going to keep hating and jealous people don’t want to see another person happy, hence they criticize. But the person should keep his calm, should think it is just not about him, Life is long and there are far more important things in life to focus on rather than draining energy in a negative criticism which is not true. One should know self very well and just ignore negative criticism and keep moving forward.

Hence to summarise, Criticism has no power without our reaction. If positive criticism then learns from it & improve. If negative criticism then just ignore it. Also one needs to recognize the intention of the person who is criticizing. And if we are criticizing anyone it should always be constructive because what goes around comes around..!!!