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Personal Development Advice, Tools to Improve The Quality Of Your Life

“The best of men is he who blushes when you praise him and remains silent when you defame him.”

- Kahlil Gibran

Criticism can actually be a good thing.

Often times it means you’re marching to the beat of your own drum, and in the process you’re reminding others of their own mediocrity. Criticism is their defense mechanism, and by lashing out at you they’re attempting to bring you down to their level so they can feel better about themselves and the decisions they’ve made.

Other times, criticism is directed your way by people you love dearly. Usually well intentioned, it’s often because these people are worried about you or concerned about your future.

Regardless of the source of criticism, we allow people’s attacks to affect the balance of our mind. We get angry, lash back at others, and lose faith in who we are and what we’re trying to accomplish.

Whenever you decide to go against the grain and strive to reach some of your loftier goals, you can bet you’re going to come up against a considerable amount of criticism. For you to succeed in reaching these goals, you must learn to deal with this criticism in a healthy and positive way.

Indian Family + Dropping Out of School = Guaranteed Criticism

When I decided to drop out of school, I had a vague idea of what I was getting myself into.

I mentally prepared for what was sure to be a barrage of criticism in the form of phone calls, e-mails, and personal visits. I determined I was going to tell as few people as possible about my decision, and ignore everyone that tried to force their “wisdom” upon me.

When people called, I didn’t answer. When people e-mailed, I never replied. And when people took the time to visit me at home, I dreaded the prospect of sitting down and chatting with them about my future.

This is how I dealt with the criticism in my life, and let me tell you, running away from it only made things worse. I’ve hurt the people who love me most, and have alienated myself from them in the process. People no longer bother telling me what they think because they know any attempts at conversation will always end up ignored or in an argument.

I’ve closed the door on a potential source of constructive criticism and positive energy in my life, and it’s because I’ve been too immature to learn how to deal with criticism in a healthy way.

15 Months Later

It’s been 15 months since I made the decision to withdraw from school, and the amount of criticism I’ve been subjected to has gone way past even my most extreme expectations.

My mom takes every opportunity she gets to criticize me for not being in school. She tells me I’m lazy. She calls me useless. She makes fun of me in front of her friends. Whenever I tell her a story about one of my friends, she always ends the conversation with, “Well, at least he’s in school Rahul!”

This can be awfully frustrating. At times I find myself engaged in an argument with my mother about my beliefs, or out of anger I’m ignoring her, or in my defense I’m criticizing her for the way she leads her life.

Is this any way to handle criticism? To fight with the person who loves me more than anyone else in the world?

Here I am trying to improve the quality of my life by reading tons of personal development books and attending courses like Vipassana, but for some reason I can’t even do something as simple as leading a proper relationship with my loved ones.

Healthy Ways to Deal with Criticism

As you can tell from my story, criticism can be a terribly negative force if you don’t learn how to deal with it properly. Thankfully, along my journey I’ve learned quite a few healthy ways to handle criticism. I’m nowhere near the expert I strive to be, but I do know that the path I’m on now will eventually get me there. That’s what’s important.

Here are a few techniques and perspectives I’ve learned over the past 15 months that help me deal with criticism in a positive, healthy way. Apply them to your life and I’m confident they’ll do the same for you.

1. Defenselessness - Notice how you always feel the need to defend yourself against the criticism of others. The most important thing you must learn is how to relinquish this need to defend yourself all the time. As long as you defend yourself, criticism always wins the battle over your attempts to maintain a balanced state of mind. This is also the best way to ensure a life of isolation, anger, and broken relationships.

2. Understand the source of peoples’ criticism – Each person will have their own reasons for criticizing you. If you care about the person, it’s your responsibility to figure out the source of their criticism to make sure it doesn’t get in the way of your relationship. Understanding this source will help you lower your guard, because you’ll usually find the person is well intentioned. For example, I’ve come to understand that my mother’s source of criticism is her perceived duty of letting me know when I’m making a mistake. She views my decision to drop out of school as a huge mistake, and she lets me know that whenever she gets a chance. I’m finding it harder and harder to get angry with her as I understand this truth more deeply. Seek to understand others, and you’ll find that the need to defend yourself against criticism will slowly dissolve.

3. Extract the value from others’ perspectives – Once you’ve come to understand the source of a person’s criticism, investigate whether or not his or her perspective has any applicability to your life. Many times you’ll find there is value in what others are trying to tell you, and you’ll be able to mesh their ideas with your own, creating a better approach to reaching your goals altogether. It takes a wise person to set his or her ego aside, and quietly listen to the harsh words of others. It takes an even wiser person to learn a valuable lesson from these harsh words.

4. Believe in yourself - One of the best ways to deal with criticism is to firmly believe in yourself. Believe in your ideas, perspectives, the path you’ve chosen, and the decisions you’ve made. Peoples’ negative comments and criticisms will bounce off of you if you have a tremendous amount of self-confidence. Observe how you react to criticism, and many times you’ll find that whenever you defend your ideas, perspectives, or the decisions you’ve made, it’s because you don’t believe in them wholeheartedly in the first place. If you did, you wouldn’t feel the need to defend them from the attacks of others. Self-confidence is the path to defenselessness.

5. Stop seeking approval - This one has been huge for me. For the longest time I’ve wanted my father’s and mother’s approval, so I would do everything in my power to get it. When they criticized me I would argue persistently, trying to get them to see my point of view. I wanted them to say they believed in me. I wanted them to agree with me so I could feel like I was doing the right thing. I craved their validation. As I’ve progressively relinquished my need for their approval, I’ve noticed I’m not as reactive to their criticism as I was before. Whether or not they believe in me, I realize I have to believe in myself. This is the only way I’ll be able to create the life of my dreams. Who’s approval do you seek? In what way? Why?

Putting it in Perspective

The kind of criticism that hurts the most is from the people who matter most to you in your life. Understand that a majority of the time this stinging criticism originates from a place of love in the critic’s heart. Kindly listen to their words, extract any value these words may provide, and then go back to doing things the way you’ve been doing them.

There’s no need to argue.

There’s no need to defend your ideas, perspectives, and the decisions you’ve made.

There’s no need to prove anything to anyone.

Believe in who you are, the path you’ve chosen, and the decisions you’ve made, and you’ll soon find that criticism no longer stings like it once did.

Photo by mdany

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Today I have a special treat for all of you.

I’m going to share a resource that will allow you to take a deeper look into your personality, and will provide a tremendous amount of clarity on your identity.

Sound like something you might be interested in?

Behold, the MBTI test!

I won’t bore you with an in-depth explanation of the mechanics of the test and how it works. If you’re interested, please click on the Wikipedia link above for a detailed description of all that fun stuff.

Instead, let’s dive right in and get our hands dirty!

Taking and Interpreting the MBTI Test

To take the test, please click here. Answer each question as honestly as you possibly can. Choose the answers that best describe you as you are right now, not the answers that describe who you’d like to be in the future. The more accurate your answers are, the more accurate your results will be.

Once you’ve finished the test and received your results, click here to read a detailed description about your personality type. If you answered all the questions on the test to the best of your abilities, the accuracy of this description may blow your mind. I freaked out because mine was spot on.

The Personality Page also has in-depth personal development tips for each of the types. After reading the general description of your type, click here (scroll down) for a better explanation of your strengths and weaknesses and how to work on them.

One last cool thing the site explains is how your personality type influences your relationships and the way you treat others. It provides a tremendous amount of clarity on why you act the way you do towards your friends, family, lovers, and children. Please click here (scroll down) if you’d like to read further on this subject.

My Personality Type

I’ve taken the MBTI multiple times over the past 2 years, and my result has only changed once during that time. The first time I took the test my result was ESTP, but every time I’ve taken the test after that my result has been ENTP. The first result was inaccurate because I didn’t take the test seriously, and I failed to put the required thought into my answers. When I read the personality type description of ESTP it didn’t sound very accurate, and I unfairly decided the test was a terrible indicator of my personality type.

Six months later I decided to give the test another try, just for fun. This time my result was ENTP, and after reading the detailed description of my type I was amazed at how accurately it described my personality.

Since then I’ve been taking the test every 6 months, and my result hasn’t changed at all. Given the amount of growth I’ve experienced over the past two years, I think that’s pretty incredible. To read more about my type, you can click here.

Making the Most of Your Type

I’m writing this section under the assumption that you’ve already taken the test and read the detailed description of your type. If you haven’t done either and want to keep reading, be my guest. But be warned, some of this terminology may seem a bit cooky to you!

I’ve found that the understanding of my dominant, auxiliary, tertiary, and inferior functions has given me a substantial amount of clarity on where I need to direct my future self-improvement efforts.

For example, my dominant function is Extraverted Intuition. This means my primary mode of living is directed by using my intuition to interpret the information I take in from my external environment. I’m exceptionally good at doing this, and often times I’ll see connections and patterns in my environment that many of the other personality types miss.

Sounds like a wonderful superpower to have, right? Wrong!

This strength is a double-edged sword because of its dominant nature. Unchecked, it could turn into a personal development block by taking over my entire personality. As a result, my auxiliary function of Introverted Thinking and tertiary function of Extraverted Feeling would be overshadowed, creating an imbalance in my personality.

Such an imbalance would lead me to act on my intuitions without thoroughly thinking them through first. This could cause me to put myself in tough situations with problems I would have foreseen had I taken the time to think through my intuitions.

This imbalance would also prevent me from properly weighing other people’s feelings, and I could come across as cold and insensitive to the people who matter most to me in my life. In the worst-case scenario, I may be perceived as so inconsiderate and hurtful by my loved ones that they leave me altogether.

Totally NOT cool.

I’ve spent a great deal of time strengthening my Introverted Thinking function, and I feel like I’ve finally gotten it down. I used to jump from “brilliant” idea to “brilliant” idea without giving the consequences of my choices much thought. However, these days I’ve settled down, and I now think through potential ideas and their consequences much more thoroughly.

The strengthening of my Introverted Thinking function is actually the reason I came to the realization that sharing my personal development insights with others is the right career path for me. Without developing this function I would have never come to such a realization, and I would still be jumping around between potential career paths.

I’m now shifting my self-improvement efforts towards developing my Extraverted Feeling function. I am aware that I am extremely weak in this area, and I’ve started to use my newly developed Introverted Thinking function to help me understand the way my actions affect the feelings of those around me. It’s definitely a work in progress, and I’m confident that in time I will acquire the required amount of understanding necessary to make this shift possible.

Until that time, please forgive me if I’m unnecessarily cold or inconsiderate towards your feelings!

Develop Your Subordinate Functions

Choosing to develop your auxiliary and tertiary functions is one of the most important undertakings you can commit to on your personal development quest. By doing so, you’ll become a more balanced individual, and will gain control over your rampant dominant function. You’ll gain the ability to strengthen your weaknesses, and further strengthen your strengths. Your auxiliary and tertiary functions will begin to shine, and you’ll unlock access to abilities you never knew you had before.

The MBTI test, coupled with the information on The Personality Page, will give you all of the tips, suggestions, and clarity you’ll need to make this happen.

I love to see the look on people’s faces after they complete the test and read the detailed description of their results. It’s always a look of amazement and satisfaction. Since I can’t see your pretty mug through my computer screen, I would love if you share what you think of the test and your results in the comments section below!

Photo by SylviaJadePhotography

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