Tag: personal criticism

Allow Yourself to Fail

I haven’t written on this blog in a while, and it’s because I wasn’t willing to confront my own failure. I had failed to create written blog content every single day for 100 days in a row, so I stopped entirely for months. It’s so obviously silly when you write it out like that.

I still have draft blog posts that could I could post, but I didn’t want to accept my failure. If I walked away from it I didn’t have to think about it. But I still thought about it, because I had ideas I wanted to post all the time.

What changed?

I started thinking about the content that I had created.

I thought about the work that was building on top of itself, and what that I wasn’t in a sprint to get there. I don’t expect to have millions of views on anything for a long time, maybe never, and both of those actions are totally okay.

I started thinking about all the fun things I could do with my blog, like offering free consulting services to businesses to grow my personal network.

I accepted my failures and it has made all the difference.

Personal Criticism V. Professional Criticism

“Don’t take criticism in life from anyone you wouldn’t take advice from”

This might make sense in your personal life, but it’s nonsense for your business. Businesses need to accept criticism from anyone and everyone. The customers you most upset in the last email blast hold the key to not losing the next batch. By accepting criticism and addressing the problems the business has room to grow and even win back previously unhappy clients.

If you had a chance to get rid of a negative review and change that individual into a brand promoter wouldn’t you try?

The same goes for internal criticism. If you don’t take into consideration the concerns of your talent, you will soon find yourself talent-less (regardless of titles you may bestow on replacements). And we all know talent drives businesses.

Listen to everyone, then act.