Dealing with Non-Constructive Criticism

The human ego is at once both an incredibly powerful and terribly fragile beast.

With a swift boost, it can will us over seemingly insurmountable obstacles that we would have otherwise struggled with. Yet with an equally as swift kick to the temple, it can drag us down into feelings of despair and self-pity, preventing us from achieving what’s important to us.

That’s why it’s important to keep a regular check on our ego, especially when it comes to unjust shcriticism.

Haven’t we all heard the tales of people criticized by friends, peers and maybe even overbearing parents to such an extent that they grew up believing themselves to be as worthless, weak or stupid as those around them had said they were.

If we hope to achieve anything in life, we must prevent criticism from holding us back to the point that even though we may see the opportunities that lay ahead, we don’t believe ourselves to be good enough, or strong enough, or smart enough to pursue them.

We’re not talking about utilizing constructive criticism, and using feedback to further improve a piece of work or, in some cases, a piece of ourselves.

Though some people don’t even handle that very well, what we’re really talking about here is the unfair, unjust, often harsh criticism that often takes the form of a personal attack. Though such attacks can be hurtful or otherwise detrimental, it is possible to handle them with the kind of care, which ensures that not only does our ego survive unharmed; our self-esteem can actually be bolstered by harsh words. All it takes it to look at these attacks with a different perspective and ask ourselves a couple of questions.

Is this really an attack, or are we taking constructive criticism too personally?

Let’s face it; there are a lot of people out there who just aren’t the world’s greatest communicators. They probably meant to give us some helpful advice or feedback from which we could actually use, but they went about it an altogether unhelpful fashion.

Or maybe they did mean to attack or insult us, and yet somewhere in their words, we can find a glimmer of truth. Give some thought to the underlying message of the ‘attack’ and see if you can’t glean something positive from it.

If it is constructive criticism, what can we gain from it?

Is there something we can learn? Something we can utilize to improve a project or a personal attribute?

If it’s merely an outright attack, why?

‘They’re just jealous’ often seems like a childish response to criticism, but half the time it’s actually a reasonable response. It isn’t uncommon for people to feel threatened by another’s success or happiness. Nor is it particularly unreasonable to suggest that some folks feel a certain resentment towards others because they struggle to understand a person’s motives or ambitions. Their view of the world struggles to comprehend that of another individual and they feel like they need to attack or demean that person until he or she comes around to their way of thinking. This is entirely unhealthy of course, but it happens.

You could try talking to your aggressor, not necessarily to win them over to your way of thinking, but at least to help them understand that your success, happiness, or way of life detracts nothing from theirs. They are free to do whatever makes them happy just as you are.

If that fails, it may simply be necessary to strengthen your resolve. You know in your heart and in the pit of your gut that what you’re doing is the right thing for you. Providing the only way you’re hurting this other person is in a manner made up entirely in their own mind, you can carry on safe in the knowledge that your ego and self-esteem remain balanced.

With that, you can safely overcome those insurmountable obstacles and seize those all-important opportunities remaining confident that you are indeed good enough as you are, yet always remaining willing to improve at the behest of fair, constructive criticism.

Featured photo credit:  Closeup of many fingers pointing at man via Shutterstock

Chris Skoyles is a writer, blogger and consultant with a passion for helping others achieve their creative goals. Chris can be found rambling about writing, music and creativity on Twitter or on his blog

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Dealing With a Full Mailbox in Outlook 2010

We’ve all seen it. The dreaded “Your mailbox is over the limit.” message.

This means that not only can you not receive any new mail messages, you can’t send any emails either. This usually happens right at the climax of a very important project. The question is: What can we do about it?

You could always ask your email administrator to increase your limits, but that could take some time depending upon how busy they are with other help desk tickets. Below I’ve offered ways to help yourself. Plus, if you’ve already done these steps below, then when you do request the help desk ticket for increasing your limits, you will stand a much better chance of getting them increased.

The first thing that you can do is empty your Deleted Items folder. The following steps are if you are using Outlook, but the concepts work in almost any mail program. Like your trash can at home, if you don’t empty the Deleted Items once in a while, you won’t ever get the space back. Simply right-click on the Deleted Items folder and choose Delete.

The next one that’s often overlooked is your Sent Items folder. Outlook by default, saves every mail message to your Sent Items folder. Most other mail programs have the same capabilities. What this means is that every single “Hey…what are you doing for lunch?” email is in there. All five years worth of them. You don’t need to hang onto those messages. Go ahead and delete them. This step may take a bit longer than emptying the Deleted Items folder, but it will get the job done as well. You may want to sift through the messages, since there will be some messages that you have sent that you want to retain.

The third option is to use the AutoArchive function of Outlook. This one could be an issue for you, since the criteria for most archiving is by date. There are some messages (an annual or biannual contract negotiation with a vendor, for example) that you need to keep. Instead of auto-archiving those, move the messages to another folder manually.

Outlook is usually configured to store messages on the Exchange server, which is good because you can sign into any PC in your organization and still retrieve your messages. Likewise, you can sign into webmail while you are traveling and still have access to those same messages. Unfortunately, this is where those mailbox limits come into play.

For less critical mail, create an archive for yourself , since we’ve determined that AutoArchiving may not be the answer.

The way to do this is to have Outlook open, then go to File > Account Settings. Click on the Data Files tab and click on Add. This will let you create a new .PST file. You can name it anything your want. (I would suggest something along the lines of “2011 Archives” vs. “Personal Folders”, which is the default name. And no, I don’t know how they got PST out of Personal Folders. It’s a mystery to me too…)

When you go to create the new PST file, you may want to create it in your shared files drive letter (commonly called H: for home, P: for Personal or U: for Users — your mileage may vary depending upon your network administrator.) This will create a new folder icon underneath your normal mailbox icons on the left. Expand this folder and start dragging emails over to the new folder. This folder used to have a limit of 2 GB in size, although you could always create more PST files. In Outlook 2010, they changed its formatting, increasing the limit to 50 GB — more than enough space. (If you need more than 50 GB of email, you have bigger issues than “mailbox full” messages.)

There are some caveats to this method of archiving. First, this PST file won’t be available to you from machine to machine, unless you saved it to your U: drive. Secondly, if the machine that you put it on gets corrupted or has a hard disk failure, say goodbye to your e-mail (unless it’s backed up…you do have a backup, right? ). Third, your email administrator or your network security may not favor you doing this. If there is a virus in the email system, they can clean the mail servers. If if makes it into your PST file, it’s a whole lot harder to eradicate it. Of course, you should have anti-virus scanning your email as it comes in, but it still is a concern.

If this still doesn’t do the trick, then you simply need a larger quota. Doing the steps above will help support your request for more space.

(Photo credit: White Email Symobls with One Red One via Shutterstock)

Brian K. Vagnini is a musician, designer, engineer and writer of fiction and technical topics. He was a technical trainer for five years and learned about almost every class of software. His additional writing can be found at Grey Matter Ideas and "a href="http://www.wicketbang.com">Wicketbang.com.

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The Most Overlooked Secret to Dealing with Life’s Problems

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Dealing With Stress: The Stop, Look and Listen Method

Think of your last hell task week. What exactly constitutes a “HTW”? Think of those weeks when you have to deliver that huge, vital project. You know, while also dealing with a computer crash, 40 urgent emails per day and your boss giving you a ton of ‘I want this by tomorrow’ tasks. That’s “HTW”.

You probably fear these weeks, and barely remember how you dealt with them after they are over. I want to share with you my method to dealing with them systematically.

To deal with “HTW” I use a method I call Stop, look & listen. It is very simple, and you can apply it to every stressful situation.

Shut your door, and put up a huge paper sign with “Do not disturb” on it. You can add the drawing of a skull, or the international signs for danger or death. Be creative, but make sure no one will open your door until you remove the sign unless the building is on fire or Godzilla is destroying the city.

If you have office mates, make clear to them you will be unavailable for a while. You can put your earphones in, (I personally love headphones that cancel ambient noise. For example, I use a pair of in-ear Sennheiser). Keep a baseball bat or some other menacing piece of office supplies just in case someone wants to ask you something. If you work in an open office, try wearing something that indicates ‘don’t disturb’. My girlfriend, for example, wears a hat when she can’t be interrupted, as a cue to her office mates.

Disconnect your office phone and your cell phone. Don’t worry, this will only take half an hour or so, the likelihood of something really critical happening are much like 0. Of course, Murphy’s law can decide to trick you and you lose an important call. Don’t worry, they’ll call again. Close your email, Twitter, chat and whatever things connect you to the outside world.

Give your mind at least 5 minutes of relaxation. No stressful calls, no deliveries, nothing. Just relax for a while and think about nothing. You need it. You know you need it, too. Just do it, now is the moment. Think about your favourite relaxing place, think of you as a rock: unmovable by external forces.

Write down all your outstanding tasks. All that stuff that you need to get done this week, no matter who you have to kidnap or how many nights without sleeping you need to endure. Write down your appointments (dinner with X, kids game, vet visit) and usual time consuming commitments (prepare company newsletter, take the dog out).

Take a look at this list, and then remove at least 20% of the tasks. Either delegate them, postpone them, or just remove them.

Now, see if you can get rid of another 20% of that same list.

Delegate as many as you can, even if you need to ask for some favour from your coworkers (please find me the numbers for this report and next Monday I’ll take care of the server problems) or your family (This week I can’t take the dog out, but I’ll compensate next week by also preparing dinner).

Now, although it sounds a little new-age, listen to your heart and add tasks you need to do. Add the stuff you pospone in your life for the sake of your work.

The first few times you follow this procedure, in the “Look” step you are likely to remove all life stuff just to leave work stuff. You think about your big project and put it against watching the soccer match with your father, and put off calling your dad until next week.

Work and life should be balanced. You need to avoid reaching the point that your work starts to eat into your personal time, and vice versa. If your boss is overworking you, talk to him. If the big project is conflicting with the tasks he asks you to get done from one day to the other, ask him to help you prioritize.

With this sense of control most of your stress will just fade away, because the oppressing feeling of tasks hanging over our heads without control is why we get overwhelmed. This method gives you control, and with control comes a sense of calm and diminished stress.

You can get in control by starting to manage your tasks instead of your time. When you are overwhelmed time management is usually pointless: there is a certain number of tasks that need to be done soon, and the only think you need is a piece of paper to have all them written down, but you won’t need any fancy timeboxing or split time strategy.

Pretend you are a post office worker. As tasks are assigned to you, return them to the sender, delegate to the appropriate person (or bribe/ask for a favour/task exchange) or in extreme cases, put in your list of do it.

This week, try to gain some control over your stress. By next week, I’m sure things will be different…in a good way.

Ruben Berenguel is finishing his PhD in Mathematics while writing in mostlymaths.net A 'geek of all trades', loves writing about language learning, memory hacking and time management and productivity, with the occasional bizarre programming/computing stuff.

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