A colleague of mine has been tweeting about my new e-book “Seven Steps to Happiness”–and of course, I’m happy about that! It’s always nice to have friends and colleagues to believe in you and support you and what you do.
That being said, unless you are a hermit, in life, there will always be those who support you–and there will always be those who will volunteer to criticize you–free of charge.
I bet you don’t have to think too long to remember someone who has hurled some type of criticism your way. Sometimes the critic is straightforward (“You shouldn’t have said that”) and sometimes he or she is trying to fly under the radar (“Are you sure it was a good idea to say that?”
What can you do?
You can’t escape criticism if you’re going to be yourself, think for yourself or put yourself out there in any way. Someone, somewhere (how about on Twitter!) is going to take a shot at you. I say “how about on Twitter?” because on one of the tweets my colleague and friend sent out, someone with the term “Leader” in his twitter name criticized the title of my book “Seven Steps to Happiness.“Huh?
Yes, you read that right. Someone didn’t like the title of my book–I know, hard to believe, right? What’s not to love? Well, evidently, according to the critic, there’s something not to love! Responding to my friend’s tweet he tweeted “The only reason someone uses the words ‘secret’ or ‘law’ is to try to control others.”
Now, why was I the object of criticism? He wasn’t just criticizing my book title–he was criticizing my motives–he was criticizing me. Why? When you boil it all down, it was because I did something–in this case, I wrote a book.
That’s a good thing. Doing something, creating something, saying something, standing for something, taking a risk with something–all these things are good things. And all of that exposes you to criticism. That’s fine, because as someone said, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”
And as my incredible son-in-law (Jonathon Lerma) frequently says, “It’s all good!” Thank you Jonathan–you’re right.
It’s all good because life isn’t about playing it safe or paying attention to the critics. It’s about stepping your game up because you really believe “It’s all good.” It’s about being who you are, knowing that some will love you and some not so much.
It’s about speaking up, knowing that some will agree with you, and some will take your words and twist them for their own purposes. That’s part of life and…
“It’s all good!”
Even the criticism–because the criticism means you showed up and did something. You said something. You created something. You took action.
That’s why, even with criticism “It’s all good!”
Categorized in: Articles, Life, Self-Esteem/Self-Worth
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