I’ve recently immersed myself in a new dance, west coast swing. It’s a lot harder than dancing country. The footwork is more complex and timing is extremely important, not to mention connection, eye contact and a ton of other things that you have to think about while dancing this style.
I’m very determined to get better, and I’ve been listening to every bit of advice or criticism that I’ve received from professionals and other people at my level.
But it’s got me thinking about how I receive criticism. When someone way better than me gives me something to work on; I might ask a question for clarification but overall I take that critique and put it in my back pocket and I might try and think about it during my other dances. But I never take a critique personally. They aren’t attacking my character by helping me perfect something that I’m passionate about. In fact, it shows that they do like me, otherwise why would they take the time?
Receiving criticism from pros or peers and being able to use that further yourself is the first step to accepting criticism with a positive mindset.
But it is even harder to critique yourself without taking it personally. I know that sounds confusing. But for example, I was just analyzing a video of my footwork and I had a thought, ‘I hate how dainty my steps look.’ But that isn’t the same as me saying I hate myself. I detach my current skill level from who I am as a person. If I don’t like the way my footsteps look, then I think about it next time I’m recording myself and I get my steps right until it looks how I want it too. Some might say that I’m being to hard on myself. But I don’t see it that way. I know I have the ability to fix something with practice and the right help; I’m hard on the presentation and execution. What I want is for the presentation and execution to represent me. If I don’t like how my feet look dainty when I step, it’s because I don’t think of myself as dainty, so I need to stop representing myself like that subconsciously.
But this way of thinking can extend to almost anything. If I’m drawing something, I criticize my own ability to present and execute the image. I’m not criticizing myself so my self esteem remains in tact.
If you can’t criticize yourself without taking it personal, then you will struggle to get better. You simply have to check how you receive criticism. If you see a video of yourself spinning and you look kind of awkward and you think ‘ugh why do I spin like that, I’m such an awkward person, no wonder no one wants to dance with me.” You’re destroying your own embedded motivation by attacking your character and social skills. You see yourself as awkward in the spin, so you place that value on your whole character, when it should be the other way around, know that you aren’t awkward and that an awkward spin is simply a misunderstanding of skill. If you attach the awkward to your character then you will not work to fix the spin because that’s just how you are and there is no fixing it. You’re taking it personal.
The interesting thing to me is that when I express a criticism of my own performance, in general, people assume that I am taking that criticism personal. “Oh why did I duck like that, that was weird.” Is met with, “you aren’t weird, you’re just learning! Don’t be so hard on yourself!” I just don’t think statements like that are helpful in any way. Self esteem isn’t achieved by a count of compliments from strangers or friends, it’s achieved internally by trusting yourself and your ability. So responding in that way, even if the person was taking their own criticism personally, isn’t going to help them, they will likely just sulk longer in their perceived failure. If you have trained yourself to not take criticisms personally, then those responses are just annoying.
Train yourself to separate yourself personally from the output so that it can be improved on.
Closed System 