Criticism.

Yesterday was one of those days were everything I touched seemed to fall apart and I felt like every person I came into contact with had it out for me.  It seemed that I was utterly incapable of doing anything right.  I wanted to crawl up into my bed and hide away for a bit. That, combined with reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, got me thinking about criticism--in writing, at work, at home and in life in general.  

I am the kind of person that remembers, down to the tiniest detail, criticism I received 20 years ago as well as I remember criticism I received yesterday. Occasionally I will hear myself playing something someone said over and over again in my head.  I have been working hard to not take things as personally as I once did and to take criticism as a chance to grow, but sometimes it is very difficult.  In terms of writing, that's a risk you take every time you put words on paper and share them.  But the sharing part is powerful and the risk is usually worth it.

One of my goals is to learn how to better deal with criticism.  If you have any ideas for good resources on the subject, please share.

How do you all handle criticism, wherever it might come from?  It is learning opportunity or does it fill you with self-doubt like it does to me?  Is there a way to every fully overcome this?

{Photo credit: itzshanon}