“Lately I feel like you don’t listen to me at all.”
And immediately, a thought pops into your head:
That’s not true.
Then perhaps we continue:
But I listened to you for half an hour yesterday.
And the other person replies:
See? You’re just defending yourself again.
Criticism is uncomfortable precisely because we often don’t hear it only as information about one specific behavior.
We may hear it as:
“I’m a bad partner.”
“I’m an incompetent colleague.”
“I’ve failed.”
And so we start defending ourselves before we even find out what the other person wanted to tell us.
Defensiveness is natural, but it often blocks the conversation
Imagine that a colleague tells you:
It bothers me that you often interrupt me during meetings.
You may immediately feel like replying:
That’s not true; everyone interrupts each other there.
Or:
Because you talk for an incredibly long time.
There may be some truth in these responses.
But so far, you have not addressed what your colleague is telling you at all.
The conversation can easily shift from:
“A specific behavior bothers me.”
to:
“Which one of us is right?”
Accepting criticism does not mean agreeing with everything
When someone criticizes something, you do not have to automatically say:
You’re right.
You can first find out what exactly they mean.
For example:
Can you give me a specific situation when I interrupted you?
Or:
If I understand you correctly, what mainly bothers you is that I start responding before you finish your thought?
You are not admitting anything by doing so.
You are simply trying to understand what the other person is really saying.
Only then can you decide whether you agree with it.
Understanding first, explaining afterward
A common reaction to criticism is:
But I didn’t mean it that way.
That may be true.
But the other person is often not talking about your intention. They are talking about the impact of your actions.
For example:
When you keep looking at your phone during our conversation, I feel like you’re not listening to me.
Automatic defense:
But I am listening to you.
A more useful response might be:
I understand that when I check my phone during our conversation, it seems to you that I’m not paying attention to you.
And only afterward:
I was waiting for an important message, but I should have told you.
Your perspective has not disappeared.
You simply did not use it as your first defensive reaction.
Separate the specific problem from a judgment about your personality
Not every criticism is expressed well.
Someone might say:
You’re completely unreliable.
That is a very general judgment.
You can bring the conversation back to specific behavior:
What specifically happened that makes you see it that way?
You may discover that what bothers the other person is:
You said you’d come at six, and you arrived almost an hour late.
Now you have something specific to respond to.
That’s true. I arrived late and I should have let you know.
You do not have to accept the conclusion:
I’m an unreliable person.
You can take responsibility for specific actions without accepting the label.
There may be something useful in criticism, even when it is exaggerated
Imagine someone says:
You never listen to me.
The word “never” is probably exaggerated.
But if you focus only on it:
That’s not true. I listened to you last week.
you can easily overlook the real problem.
Instead, you could say:
I don’t think I never listen to you. But it sounds like you feel I haven’t been paying enough attention to you lately. What specifically bothers you?
This way, you reject the inaccurate generalization without discarding potentially useful information.
Be careful with lengthy explanations
A defensive reaction does not have to be aggressive.
It can also look like this:
I know I arrived late, but I had a lot of work, then there was traffic, someone called me, and actually I wanted to leave earlier…
The longer we explain, the more the other person may hear:
“So it’s not really my fault.”
Sometimes a short response is much more powerful:
Yes, I arrived late. I should have let you know. I’m sorry.
You can explain the reason later if it is important.
But first, you can show that you have truly heard the problem.
What if the criticism is unfair?
The ability to accept criticism does not mean letting someone say anything to you.
For example:
You forgot to go shopping. You don’t care at all about what I need.
The first part may be justified:
You forgot to go shopping.
The second part attributes a motive:
You don’t care.
You can say:
I forgot to go shopping, and I take responsibility for that. But I disagree that it means I don’t care about what you need.
It is possible to accept the justified part of the criticism while rejecting the unreasonable part.
Criticism is not the same as a personal attack
There is a difference between:
I didn’t like the way you behaved.
and:
You’re just an idiot.
In the first sentence, you can talk about specific behavior.
The second is no longer feedback, but an attack on the person.
You do not have to accept it in the name of being “open to criticism.”
You can say:
If there’s something specific I did that bothers you, let’s address it. But I don’t want to continue if you’re going to insult me.
Accepting criticism and setting boundaries are not opposites.
Try asking yourself three questions
When someone criticizes you, it can help to slow down and go through these questions in your mind:
What specifically is the other person telling me?
Is there anything in it that I can accept?
What, on the other hand, do I disagree with?
For example:
You can’t agree on anything with me. You always change everything.
You may arrive at the following:
- I disagree with the label “you can’t agree on anything with me,”
- the word “always” is exaggerated,
- but I really did change our last two plans at the last minute.
Your response could then be:
I don’t think it’s impossible to agree on anything with me. But you’re right that I changed our last two plans at the last minute. I understand that it frustrates you.
That is much more precise than either:
Fine, everything is my fault.
or:
That’s complete nonsense.
You do not have to respond immediately
Some criticism affects us so deeply that we are unable to respond calmly.
Instead of counterattacking, you can say:
This is difficult for me to hear. I need a moment to think it over.
Or:
I want to respond to you, but right now I feel I would only react defensively. Can we come back to this in a little while?
A pause does not have to be an escape.
If you genuinely return to the topic, it can be a way to prevent unnecessary escalation.
The goal is not to stop feeling hurt
Criticism can hurt, even when it is expressed well.
The goal is not to become someone who does not care at all what others say about them.
It is rather about developing the ability to create a small space between criticism and your reaction.
Instead of immediately saying:
That’s not true.
try first:
What exactly do you mean?
Instead of:
And you do exactly the same thing.
try:
What specifically is the problem for you?
And instead of:
Fine, I’m terrible then.
try:
I accept this part. But I disagree with this part.
That is already a very different way of communicating.
The hardest part is doing it in a real conversation
When reading an article, we have time to think of the right response.
In an everyday conflict, however, someone may say:
You can’t talk to me at all. Whenever I tell you something, you start making excuses.
And you have only a few seconds to respond.
That is precisely why you can practice a similar situation in Duovio.
A virtual person will give you uncomfortable feedback, and you will respond in your own words. You can practice first understanding what the other person is telling you, accepting the justified part, and calmly rejecting what you consider unfair.