Monday
06Jul2009
Master Key To Success In Entrepreneurship: How To Overcome Fear Of Criticism
Monday, July 6, 2009 at 12:05PM Olin Miller said, "You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do." If you want to achieve success in entrepreneurship, it is essential that you develop an immunity to criticism. When you strive to be or to do something great there will always be those individuals that will lash out at you whether due to jealously, envy, or other feelings of inadequacy. The further up the scale of success you ascend, the greater the likelihood is of others wanting to knock you down. This is simply the nature of achievement and something you must keep always at the back of your mind so that you never become blindsided by an impending attack.
Imperviousness to the criticism and judgments of others is something I was fortunate to learn and adopt very early in life. I had a very strong German grandmother that helped raise me and she instilled in me the ideas of ignoring the agendas of others and instead doing what I felt was right and being an individual. This has served me well because I have always had an incorruptible sense of independence and individuality that is quite liberating as opposed to what the majority of people experience, which sometimes borders on anxiety and paranoia about what other people are thinking or saying about them behind their backs.
Why it is essential to entrepreneurial success to banish all concern for the criticism of other people? The reason is because if you are giving into this impulse you are giving into fear and fear will - without question - hold you back in any endeavor. Your self-image will determine whether or not you allow the judgments of others to rattle your cage, so to speak. If you believe you are the kind of person that allows others to control you by giving into your fear of what they might be thinking or saying about you, then your self-image is not optimal for becoming a successful entrepreneur. Being fearful of criticism is a learned behavior and changing behavior, especially if you have been practicing it your entire life, is not something that is quickly and easily resolved.
You are going to have to work at this by catching yourself in the moment that you become overly concerned or even obsessed with worrying about what is being said or thought about you. A "trigger word" is a helpful tool to use for this situation. "Cancel" or "Stop" or "Delete" are all effective trigger words. Find out what works best for you. The idea here is to realize when you are doing the undesirable behavior and in the moment say one of these trigger words to yourself - preferably out loud - so that you definitively interrupt the thought pattern in your mind. The next step is to replace those obsessive concerns about criticism with a more productive thought or affirmation. An example is, "I'm perfect just the way I am."
Whatever trigger words or affirmations you create for yourself, it is important to realize that this will take time because this is behavior modification. If you find that you cannot simply flip a switch and change how you feel about criticism, do not despair because behavior becomes part of who you think you are, is learned and reinforced over time, and is not something most people can change overnight.
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