The Great Acting Blog: “Handling Unfair Criticism”
I don’t know anyone who likes being criticised. In fact, even the mere prospect of being criticised is enough to put many people off from attempting anything in the first place. Sometimes, criticism can have a positive impact, causing us to re-examine what we are doing and redouble our efforts, this is especially true if we were having doubts anyway. But mostly it just seems unfair; “can they not see the good in what I have done?” We often respond emotionally instead of keeping our heads, and consequently we lose our focus.
Perhaps there is no perfect way of responding to criticism. Perhaps, when it comes, out of the blue as it usually does, the best we can hope for is to regain our composure as quickly as possible, and re-focus on our goals.
It’s worth reminding ourselves however, that it’s not us who is injured by unfair criticism but the person doing the criticising. After all, they fail to derive pleasure from our work and cannot see the good in it, so it is they who are missing out – they have deceived themselves and should be pitied. Finally, the opinion of another is not in our control and therefore should not concern us. The next time we are criticised unfairly, we should just shrug and quote the Stoics; “it seemed so to him”, then return to our work.
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