In my industry, knowledge is king..
I'm a tech guy.. and in the tech business, it's *rare* that criticism, is accepted as "constructive".. rarer still to be able to offer it without someone getting completely defensive about it.. its almost as if any advice is considered an attack.. i believe this is because we're sometimes afraid that if we admit to say "we're wrong", or " i hadn't thought of that", it admits defeat or weakness. In a sense, we could loose our jobs if we are wrong..
Welp, real life is sometimes like this.. you have to be willing to accept constructive criticism, *without fear*, if you want to be happy. But it go's deeper than that..
There's a lot of people who are out there that don't feel deserving of love, or feel unworthy, or somehow there's something lacking within them to be able to accept the love or advice they are being offered (good or bad).. it's like "you love me? why? what did i do?"
Its almost as if people feel a *need* to be defensive . There's a lot to be said for the idea that we bring upon ourselves enough feelings of "unworthyness" that any external influence is just piling on more crap we don't need.. so being defensive is only natural..
*but*, here's the thing..
Whats wrong with loving yourself enough to accept the criticism? There's absolutely *nothing* wrong with accepting it, then later saying the criticism is complete bullshit. But becoming immediately defensive about it just exhibits a fear that you're unworthy or not good enough.
So there's where you need to rewire your brain..
You *are* awesome, and you *are* worthy of the love others give you.. you are also strong enough to withstand criticism, and accept it for what it really is.. a chance to reaffirm and reexamine how awesome you are.
Loving yourself and really accepting yourself in general is the key to a lot of things. Your life suddenly gets better, fewer bad things happen, and when they do, "hey, whaddaya know" they're confident enough in themselves to handle it.
Go and watch "She's out of my League".. a corny, crude movie where the premise is "perfect 10 falls in love with a hard 5". Through the crap (sometimes hilarious crap), the real message was that she fell for him because he was a 10: the 5 just needed to love himself enough to *be* the 10..
You're a 10.. love yourself enough to be it..
