“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” ~Aristotle If you don’t want to be criticised - don’t do anything .Although you’ll probably then be criticised for not doing anything, or for doing nothing - if that’s actually possible. The meaning behind it is clear - the more you do the more people have to criticise you about. the more you open yourself up to judgement. We’ve all met people who always seem to be worried about what other people think about them. So much so it’s the determining factor in deciding if they do or don’t do something. But let’s not let such thinking keep us living small lives and stop us getting out there, making an impact or doing what we want. Because the truth is that whatever you do you’re likely to be criticised. Whoever we are, we will experience criticism. Not least because we all do it. We criticise ourselves and and we criticise others - even if it’s only in the privacy of our own minds. But it’s actually a lot more out there than that if we’re honest. Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about feelings and being criticised brings up all sorts of feelings in us, so we thought it would be good to think about criticism and why we don’t like it. Starting with what it is, when and how we experience and ending with why we don’t like it. What is criticism? There’s many ways to describe criticism and they involve the following elements and concepts: Judgement Feedback Evaluation Analysis Opinion Disapproval Critique The modern word of criticism comes from the 14th century French expression critique and has roots in Latin ("criticus" - a judger, decider, or critic), and, even earlier, in classical Greek where "kritos" means judge, and "kritikos" means able to make judgements. this conveys the notion of the critic owning a sense of discernment - which isn’t often the first thing we think about when we’re being criticised. The Oxford Dictionary carries 3 definitions of criticism The expression of disapproval of someone or something on the basis of perceived faults or mistakes. The analysis and judgement of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work. The scholarly investigation of literary or historical texts to determine their origin or intended form. - For example The Bible - really a subset of the second definition. We’re talking predominantly about the first definition here. When do we experience criticism? We all experience criticism, at least in the sense of feedback, by virtue of growing up. It’s practically impossible to grow up and not be subject to criticism of some sort - and there are key sources of it. For most of us it begins, and keeps going, in the family. Staring with our parents and our siblings and maybe extended family too like grandparents, uncles and aunties and cousins. Then we go to school and it really kicks in big time and carries on into college and university - hopefully in a constructive feedback variety,even if it doesn’t always feel like that. This continues into the workplace - only now it’s called 1:1s and performance reviews or even team meetings. It also happens if you work for yourself or are involved in a creative enterprise. We’re not immune from criticism from our friends either. In fact the closer or more intense the relationship the more likely we are to experience criticism. Which leads us to another potential source of criticism - our nearest and dearest - our husbands, wives or partners. If you have children you will at some point endure their criticism - especially during those teenage years they’re trying to break free, find themselves and put their own stamp on the world, and you get criticised for much of what you do and stand for. Do we ever welcome criticism? There are occasions when we welcome criticism. We ac