How to Stop Taking Criticism Personally (Even When You Know They Didn’t Mean It)

Sometimes, one small piece of criticism can make you feel like you’re not good enough at all. Say your manager looks over a presentation you made, and she said, “This is good, but slide 4 is a little crowded though.” And that’s all she said. One slide out of 12.

And she started by telling you that it was good overall. But on the way home, you’re thinking about that one slide. You’re thinking about it while you brush your teeth, while you eat your dinner. And three days later, you’re still thinking about it.

Only now, you’re not really thinking about the slide. You’re wondering whether you’re any good at your job. And here’s the strange part. You know she didn’t mean that.

If a friend asked what she meant, you would say that she meant that one particular slide that was crowded. I mean, you understand that completely, but it doesn’t really help. Because the problem isn’t that you misunderstood her. Somewhere in those three days, a comment about one slide became a question about whether you’re any good at all.

So, if somebody pointed out one small thing you did, and what you heard was that you’re not good enough, maybe it was your boss, a teacher, a coach, or someone at home. And if you’re still thinking about it long after they’ve forgotten they said it, even though you know they didn’t mean it that way, then this episode is for you. Welcome to Self Full, the show where we figure out why some words stay with us so much longer than they should. My name is Wilson, and I’d love to tell you that I’m great at taking criticism, but I can’t say that I am.

Someone can still point out one small thing I did and ruin an hour of my day. The difference is, it doesn’t ruin my whole week. Not anymore. And if this happens to you, it doesn’t mean that you’re too sensitive or that you can’t handle any feedback.

Almost everybody takes some criticism this way, especially from people whose opinion matters to them. And in this episode, we’ll look at why a small comment about something you did can feel like it’s about you as a person. We’ll look at why you keep replaying it for days, and then what you can actually do when it happens. Criticism of something you did is just something to work on.

It only gets heavy when it starts being about you. So stick around, because by the end of this episode, one small comment can go back to being just one small comment, instead of a judgment about who you are. I want you to think back to getting a test back in school. Somewhere on the page, the teacher has drawn a red circle.

It went around that one wrong answer, or one word you spelled wrong. Everything else on the page was fine. And nobody ever drew that circle around your name at the top. That’s what criticism is supposed to be like.

Someone points out one thing that could be a little better. Something you did, or made, or said. It might come from a manager, a teacher, a coach, a friend, or someone you love. It’s usually one sentence, and often, it’s actually pretty fair.

But some criticism doesn’t feel like a circle around one answer. It feels like somebody drew the circle around your name. And people will tell you, don’t take it personally, which is good advice, and most people can’t follow it just by deciding to. And before we go any further, I should say which kind of criticism I mean though.

I mean a comment about one thing you did, whether or not you agree with it. That’s different from somebody attacking who you are. If someone call you stupid, or lazy, or keep putting you down to make you feel small, that’s not a criticism of something you did. That’s a different problem, and this episode isn’t about that.

But we’ll cover this in a future episode. So why does one small comment about something you did end up feeling like it’s about you as a person? Which leads us to the first point.

Point 1: Why One Small Comment Feels Like It’s About You as a Person

There are two very different ways to feel bad about a mistake, and psychologists have studied both. The first way, the bad feeling is about what you did. You think, “I made a mistake in the thing I did.” It feels bad.

But it’s about that one thing. The second way, the bad feeling is about you as a person. You think, “I am bad at this. Maybe I’m bad at everything.”

They call the first kind Guilt, and the second kind Shame. And across a lot of research, the first kind can usually be helpful. It makes the person go back and make things right. But the second kind usually make things worse.

So why would a comment about one thing, become a feeling about your whole self? Here’s what seems to be going on underneath. Most of us carry around one question, a lot more often than we notice. And the question goes, “Am I good enough?”

Not, “Am I the best at it?” Not, “Am I good at doing things?” Just, “Am I good enough as a person?” That question is usually running somewhere in the background.

So when somebody criticized one small thing you did, your brain doesn’t only hear, “fix this one thing.” It also hears an answer to that bigger question. And the answer your brain hears is, “you are not good enough.” That’s how the red circle ends up around your name.

The other person drew it around that one thing you did, but your own brain moved it. And that’s why telling yourself not to take it personally doesn’t work. By the time you could decide not to, your brain already has. Criticism is about one thing you did, but your brain hears it as an answer to whether you’re good enough or not.

So how can you tell if a comment is still about what you did, or if it’s become about you? In the moment, they’re hard to tell the part. And here’s the first tool: Turn it into a to-do. This only takes about a minute.

Take what they said, and write it down as something you can actually do. One line, it starts with a verb, and it’s something you could check off when it’s finished. A to-do will sound like this. “Move my main point up to the first paragraph,” or “call the client back the same day,” or “clean up the kitchen before I go to bed.”

If what you’ve written fits on a to-do list, then that’s what the criticism was about. And if it gives you two or three to-dos, write them all. But if you find yourself writing down something like, “be better at my job,” or “stop being so awkward,” pause for a moment and rethink. See, these are not the things you can check off.

Nobody ever has. And when that’s all you wrote, it tells you the criticism has stopped being about what you did. It’s become about you. What you’ve written down is really that question.

“Am I good enough?” Here’s what that looks like in a scenario. Picture it’s Wednesday night, and you’re lying on your bed in your dorm room, still in your practice clothes. Today, at a basketball practice, your coach pulled you aside and said, “your passes are late.

You need to keep your eyes open.” It took him about a couple of seconds to say that, but you’ve been thinking about that sentence for three hours. So you grab your phone and try turning what he said into it to-do. The first thing you type is, “get better at basketball.”

And you look at it, you realize that you can never check that off. So you try again, and this time, you write down what he actually asked for. You type, “pass the ball sooner when there’s an opening.” I mean, you still feel a little stupid about today, but now there are two lines on your phone.

One of them, you can work on at the next practice. The other one, nobody could ever finish. And you know that by heart. Writing it as a to-do works because to-do can only be about something you did or something you made.

Nobody can ever check off being good enough. So the moment you try to write one, you find out which kind of criticism you’re holding. That’s what happened in a dorm room. The first line you type was about you.

The second one was about your passes. And seeing the two of them next to each other show you how much of the bad feeling was about basketball, and how much was about whether you’re good enough. And if the first thing you write is the one you cannot check off, that is normal. A lot of people’s first try is.

Just write a second line. So the to-do gives you something you can actually work on. But the other line is still there. The one about whether you’re any good.

And that’s the thought that keeps playing in your head for days, which leads us to the next point.

Point 2: Why You Keep Replaying Criticism for Days

When the criticism is about something you did, there’s a way to be done with it. You rewrite the part they pointed out, you execute the fix, and it’s over. But when it’s become about whether you’re good enough, there is no way to be done with it. There is nothing you can do this week that answers that question for good.

So your brain keeps going back over what they said, looking for an answer in it, and it never finds one. And that’s why you replay it over and over again. And the same psychologist found something else about the second kind of bad feeling we talked about earlier: Shame. This is where it gets personal.

And it tends to push people one of two ways. They either hide or they fight back. Hiding looks like not opening their mail, leaving their text unread, skipping the next practice. Fighting back looks like a long explanation of why you did it that way, or reminding them of something they got wrong last month, or deciding in your head that they are always picky anyway.

Both of those feels like protecting yourself. And in a way, they are. But neither one does anything about what they actually pointed out. So the mistake stays unfixed, and the question of whether you’re good enough stays unanswered.

When criticism is about what you did, you can finish with it. But when it’s about who you are, you can’t. So your brain keeps going back to it. So what do you do with the second kind of line?

The one like, “be better at my job,” that you can never check off. And here’s a second tool, which might feel a little strange: Spend five minutes on what else you care about. As soon as you catch yourself replaying it, or before you answer them, stop. Grab a piece of paper or open a blank page on your phone, and set a timer for five minutes.

And then write about something you care about that has nothing to do with the criticism. It could be your little brother, or being the friend people call when something goes wrong. It could be the music you make that nobody heard yet. It could be your faith.

It could be your grandmother’s cooking. Anything that has nothing to do with what you’re facing right now. Write down why it matters to you, not why you’re good at it. Simply write down why you care about it.

Pick something far away from what they criticize you for. If the criticism was about your job, don’t write anything about your job. When the five minutes are up, go back to what they said, and read it again. That part matters.

This isn’t a way of never looking at the criticism again. And let me give you a scenario to explain this further. Say it’s Saturday morning in your apartment, and your girlfriend just left for the gym. And you remember that last night, the two of you had dinner with three of her friends from work.

And on the walk home, your girlfriend said, “You were kind of quiet tonight. I really wanted them to get to know you.” She said it nicely, but you haven’t stopped thinking about it since. The to-do part is easy.

Ask her friend a couple of questions next time. But there’s another thought that’s a lot louder. “I am boring. My girlfriend’s friend thinks I’m boring.”

And you’ve got a text to your girlfriend half-typed. It says, “I was tired, and honestly, they only talk about work the whole time.” But you don’t send it. You realize that you’ve been trying to explain it.

You realize that this is the fight in your fight-or-flight response. So instead, you set a timer for five minutes, and you start writing about your grandfather, how he taught you to fish when you were little, and why you still call him every Sunday, even when there’s nothing new to say. And the timer goes off after five minutes, you go back to what your girlfriend said, word for word. And this time, it sounds like what it was.

You realize that she wanted her friend to know you. So you delete the text that you didn’t send, and not drown it in thinking that you were boring. Now, most people would guess those five minutes should have gone into thinking about the dinner, figure out what went wrong, or maybe tell yourself you’re actually a really fun person. Researchers have tested this a lot, and it goes a different way.

In study after study, they have people spend a few minutes writing about something they really care about, something that had nothing to do with the criticism or the failure. And afterwards, those people got a lot less defensive. They replayed what went wrong less, and they were more open to hearing the criticism. And it isn’t the same as praising yourself.

Telling yourself you’re great isn’t what does it. Writing about what you care about is. And here’s why it seems to work. The question underneath was never really about the dinner.

It was, “am I good enough as a person?” And you can answer that question from any part of your life. When you write about your grandpa, you’re answering it with something that has nothing to do with the dinner that you had. And once that question has some kind of answer, what your girlfriend said can go back to being about one quiet evening.

It’s like that test with the red circle. The circle doesn’t go away, but for five minutes, you look at the rest of the page, and you remember the circle was only ever about that one wrong answer. And the first time, you’ll feel like you’re avoiding the criticism. And the sting probably won’t be gone when the timer goes off.

And that’s fine. You’re not trying to make it stop hurting. You’re trying to get it back to being about what happened instead of about you. And I found this one by accident.

Back when I worked at my family’s business in Taiwan, I wrote an email to one of our biggest clients. My dad read it over my shoulder and said, “the wording should be more formal instead of casual. Please make it so.” And that was all he said.

But that’s not what I heard. See, what I heard was, “you still don’t know how this business works.” So first I hid. I ate lunch at my desk that day, and I found reasons not to walk past his office all afternoon.

And then at dinner at home, I fought back. I explained for about 10 minutes why I wrote the way I did, and how it shouldn’t matter anyway. And, needless to say, it turned into an argument. That night, I was still replaying that email and that argument in my head.

So I decided to turn my attention elsewhere, which back then I enjoyed watching gaming live streams. And while I sat in front of my PC watching a live stream on Twitch, I found myself, along with many other audience, were sharing personal hobbies in the chat. And I was talking about how I love video games, playing piano, enjoy cooking. I was basically listing out all the things I cared about in the chat.

And the next day when I got back to the office, I reread the email I sent, the one that I made more formal. And I realized that my dad was right. This email was for one of our biggest clients. And my dad’s email to them has always been pretty formal.

So it made no sense for me to treat it any less seriously. But at the same time, I also realized that somehow, when I was engaged in topics that had nothing to do with work, I could look at it from another perspective when I returned to work. So the five minutes helped you look at what they said without hiding or fighting back. It helps you look at things from another perspective.

But so far, everything in this episode has happened on your side of the criticism. Your mistake, your bad feeling, your question about whether you’re good enough. But we haven’t talked about the person who said it, which leads us to the final point.

Point 3: What They’re Really Asking For

When somebody criticized you, there’s more than one way to hear it. You can hear a judgment on you, and you can judge them right back. Or you can listen for what they needed when they said it. Here’s the idea.

A lot of criticism is a need that came out sideways. A person needs something, and instead of saying the need, they point at what you did. When someone said, “you never listened,” they usually mean, “I need to feel heard.” When someone said, “you’re always working,” they often means, “I miss you.”

And when your boss says your report was confusing, she might mean, “I need to understand this before my meeting tomorrow.” See, most criticism is someone asking for something they need. It just doesn’t come out sounding like asking. And that changes what you’re dealing with.

A judgment about you is something you can only defend. But a need is something you can actually help with. So how do you hear the need when what came out was criticism? And here’s the third tool: Guess what they need, and then ask.

Start with one question, just for you: “What do they need that they’re not getting right now?” Not what they think of you, what they need. Then make a guess. It doesn’t have to be right, but it has to be specific.

Say your boss tells you that your report was confusing. Your guess might be that she has to walk her own boss through it tomorrow, and she’s worried that she won’t be able to. Then ask her, something like, “are you worried about explaining this in tomorrow’s meeting?” Keep it short, and keep it a question.

You’re not telling her what’s going on inside her, you’re checking. And make it a guess that she could either say yes or no to. If you ask, “do you want this to go well?” That isn’t a guess.

Everybody wants that. A real guess points at one thing they might be worried about, or hoping for right now. And if you guess right, you’ll usually see it on their face. But if you guess wrong, they’ll tell you what it really is.

Either way, now you’re talking about what they need, not about what’s wrong with you. And you don’t have to do it on the spot. A lot of people can’t. If your face is hot, and you’re already halfway into defending yourself, that’s what the five minutes are for.

It is very hard to hear what someone else need while you’re busy protecting yourself. So do the five minutes first, and ask the next day. You can say, “I’ve been thinking about what you said about the report. Were you worried about walking into the meeting with it?”

It works even when you think they’re wrong. You can disagree about the slide, or the report, or basically anything, and still hear what they needed when they said it. And sometimes the answer would be, “no, I just think you’re bad at this.” See, that’s not a need anymore.

That’s the kind of attack we talked about at the start. And you don’t owe it another guess. But when they do tell you what they need, you’ve got something real to work with. Sometimes it’s the to-do you already wrote.

Sometimes it’s something you didn’t see coming. Let’s look at a scenario. Say it’s Sunday afternoon, and you’re at a coffee place with your friend Jordan. It’s the first time you’ve seen each other in a month.

But while you’re chatting with Jordan, your phone buzzes on the table, and then you check it. A few minutes later, it buzzes again, and you check it again. And Jordan says, “man, you’re always on your phone when we hung out.” And that comment stings.

What you heard was, “you’re a bad friend,” and you can already hear yourself saying, “I’m not always on it. I’m just waiting on something for work.” But this time, you don’t say it. You ask yourself, what Jordan needs that he’s not getting right now?

And you came up with a guess. So you ask, “just curious, does it feel like my phone matters more to me than you right now?” Jordan thinks about it for a second and said, “not really. I just haven’t seen you in a month.

I want it today to actually feel like hanging out.” See, this is where you realize that what Jordan said earlier was not a criticism about you. It was expressing his need for companionship. So you switch your phone to do not disturb.

And the two of you talk until they start stacking the chairs. See, guessing the need works because it changes what you’re listening for. When you listen for what someone thinks of you, every criticism sounds like an answer to whether you’re good enough or not. But when you listen for what they need, that question isn’t in it.

See, Jordan wasn’t telling you that you’re a bad friend. He was telling you that he missed you. And your first guess wasn’t even right, but it didn’t matter. It got him to say what he actually needed.

And it changes things for the other person too. When people feel criticized back, they usually push harder. But when they feel heard, they usually don’t need to. The need finally got through.

So the criticism doesn’t have to keep trying. This is also where the first two tools comes together. The to-do tells you what they ask for. The five minutes makes it possible to hear them without defending yourself.

And the need tells you why they ask. Once you know why, it’s a lot easier to know which to-do actually matters. So the next time one small piece of criticism starts to feel like it’s about you as a person, here’s the order. First, turn it into a to-do, so you can see what it was actually about.

Then spend five minutes on what else you care about, so the question of whether you’re good enough gets an answer from another part of your life. And then, guess what they needed, and ask them, so the criticism can go back to being what it was, somebody asking for something, for what they need. And the first time, it won’t go smoothly. You will probably type a line you can’t check off before you type one you can.

You might guess the wrong need, and that’s okay. They’ll usually tell you the right one. And at the start of this episode, your manager told you slide four was a little crowded, and three days later, you were still thinking about it. Now, picture that test with a red circle on it.

You can think of it as your manager drew her circle around that one slide, but not around your name. And before she said anything about that slide, she told you the presentation was good. But somewhere in those three days, you stopped hearing that part. But see, she probably needed something when she said it.

Maybe she’s worried that slide four is where people would get lost. So you can fix the slide tomorrow, and ask her if that’s what she was worried about. It really is that simple. And if there’s somebody in your life who hears one small piece of criticism, and can’t put it down, send this episode to them.

I think you know exactly who. And if you do apply any of the tool this week, I’d love to hear about them. You can find me on Instagram at Self Full Podcast (@selffullpodcast), or leave it in a comment on whatever platform you’re listening to this podcast on. Criticism of one thing you did is about that one thing, and about something they need.

It was never about all of you. And if it still stings a little, that’s okay. It usually means that you care about the work, and about the person who said it. And that’s exactly what helps you hear what they’re really asking for.

And remember, I’m always here for you. Take care.