Thread: Criticism
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Old 06-08-2006, 02:34 AM   #6 (permalink)
MechCow
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Location: LSD
Isn't there something self defeating about opening a thread about whether opinions are important? If the discussion leads you to believe that opinions are not important, then hasn't your own chain of logical contradicted itself? Cue mind bending *woo-ooo* noises.

I'm goal oriented. I focus on goals and care mostly about what goals I have achieved and what goals I'm heading towards. When someone criticises me I assess
- their knowledge of the issue (do they know their shit)
- their knowledge of me and my circumstance
- their reasons for criticising me
- whether the criticism fits within my goals

If my boss criticises me on my work I take it very seriously because he does know more than me about what we do. When my friends do - it depends on the friend. Some know, some have no idea.

I am very much INTJ (Myer-Briggs). The way assess criticism works very well for me because I'm very logical. The fact that you were heavily criticised and decided that you weren't going to take any criticism suggests you are very different from me. My strategy would have been to look at each piece of criticism and try to understand why I'm being criticised, whether it is of any value to me.

In short, criticism is in the ear of the listener. Its normally possible to find at least some people who are aligned with you and whose opinions are not biased by personal interest or false beliefs. If you find that overwhelmingly people's opinions are useless to you you are probably hanging out with the wrong people or presenting the wrong things about yourself to the people you hang around (or both).

I have been in jobs that I have left because I realised I had little to learn from those around me. I avoid some members of my family because I know they will give baseless opinions and will not bother to learn about me or tailor what they say based on relevance. But in the end I have normally managed to find good people in the end, and I have allowed myself to be shaped by them when I find them. That requires a willingness and openness to the fact that with 8billion people on this earth there are a lot of them who are actually better than you at being what you want to be.

Criticism welcome.
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