What Hyper Criticism Will Cost You in the End
I left halfway through her performance. The show had become unbearable for me.
My roommate, Crystal, and I had gotten tickets to see Serena Kerrigan, the "Queen of Confidence” in Boston on a Friday night a couple of years ago.
As she took the stage in her black power suit and stiletto pumps, the audience responded with cheers. I didn’t know what to expect, but her opening monologue revealed a hinted nervousness, and made me squirm in my seat a little. She continued to narrate stories from her life, accompanied by images displayed on the screen above her. I noted the jokes that fell flat and the way her voice shook as she spoke. It was clear that this was a script she was still refining. The more she spoke, the more I felt the urge to leave. About 30 minutes in, I whispered to Crystal that I wasn't feeling it and said I'd meet her after the show.
As I exited the auditorium, I felt guilty, wondering, “Why did her performance make me feel so uncomfortable?”
After some deeper reflection, I came to realize it was because of my own self-criticism. I had internalized her mistakes as if they were my own. The discomfort I felt during her show had become intolerable, and forced me to walk away.
I recognized similar patterns in myself while scrolling through social media, reading a book, or listening to podcasts, often saying things to myself like:
This is cheesy.
They're trying to do something here, but it's not working.
That would never happen in real life.
This is cringeworthy.
Here’s the problem, and maybe you can relate, if we constantly view the world through a lens of hyper-criticism, always searching for flaws and pointing out the way things could be improved, we cannot enjoy things as they are.
In essence, our silent criticism doesn't improve anything. Instead, it worsens our experience.
Personal Branding Tip
If we turn away too soon, if we cannot stay with our experience, we lose our capacity to accept—to extend compassion, to stay with discomfort, accept flaws and mistakes and actually forgive them!
Replace criticism with curiosity.
Getting curious about the discomfort, irritation, or negativity you feel will actually help you to understand where you have work to do on yourself.
Any time you notice yourself being critical of someone else, see if you can extend kindness instead. Leave a positive comment on someone’s post, or send them a thoughtful direct message! Wish them well silently in your mind. Over time, these small acts of kindness will improve your experience on social media, and will make it easier for you to create as well.
Personal Question
If you are struggling to sit with someone's content, ask yourself, why am I reacting this way? What about this person's content irritates me so much? Can I identify the part within myself that I'm trying to correct?
If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have left Serena's show. Instead, I would have stayed and cheered for her, the way I would’ve wanted someone to cheer for me.
Personal branding is about putting ourselves out there. While our performances may occasionally fall short of our expectations, if we regularly practice extending curiosity and kindness to others, it becomes easier to do the same for ourselves. Under these circumstances, improving our work and getting better over time becomes something we can actually enjoy and be successful at.
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