Adapt And Overcome or, Eliminating Crying From The List Of Reactions To Criticism
Man, university was the best time.
I remember going to the ad school common room at AUT for the first time. It was exclusive to ad students to work and hang out, AdHut, it was called. It was a great space and the class got to know each other and made friends quickly.
There was a day in the first month of the first semester when a couple of the guys decided to revamp AdHut. They moved the tables around and cleared the main wall for us to pin up anything cool, funny or creative we’d come across during the year.
In the middle of the wall was a A4 print-out of what was to be our slogan for the rest of the year:
ADAPT AND OVERCOME
A worthy slogan for young creatives to go by, if you ask me.
If there is anything a young creative (or any creative for that matter) knows well, it’s criticism and rejection. It’s a vital organ within the body of our working lives; it’s an integral part of us without which, we don’t function properly.
It is our fear of rejection and harsh criticism from others that drives us to push our talents and produce work of a high standard. And yes, when it does come, it cuts into you, which can only motivate you further not to disappoint again.
It’s all about the perspective in which you view and receive criticism. Our automatic reaction is to take it as a personal attack to the point beyond justification.
“I don’t think that sentence is quite right for what you’re trying to say.”
becomes something that sounds like,
“You know, your ability to write is just nonexistent. Whenever I read something of yours it makes me just want to bang my head until I stop living. And you smell.”
It’s important to get an attitude where you view each little criticism is a brick that helps to build the enormous stairway that is your journey to personal and professional improvement.
Ok, sure, not incredibly easy when you’re a creative person who has poured everything they have into the work, only to have it shot down. That’s a stomach knot like no other. But it requires that small degree of disconnection to your work that makes it easier.
It’s also different when it’s personal criticism.
Lucideas had it’s team alignment a few weeks ago. It was a weekend of workshops and team bonding in a beautiful, secluded location with trees and and ponds and lavish accommodation, where workshops were the last thing on you wanted to do, quite frankly.
On the second day, we were to share our peer feedback with one another. We each had a piece of paper with everyone’s name on it and you wrote what they were good at and what they needed to improve on. Then we traded.
After talking to a bunch of the guys after, I found the reactions had been similar. The things we were good at had been glanced over and the things we need improving (aka: the small reasons people secretly hate us behind our backs) had been read and re-read and analysed, accompanied with comments like,
“Who the hell wrote that?!”
“Well, apparently, I’m not a ‘team player’. Can you believe that? Guys?”
Facing those comments had me sweating like I’d been on the treadmill for longer than my comfort zone allowed. When I came across something rather interesting - a personal truth.
I was afraid, not of being cut down, but of people calling me out on the things I knew inside that were true about my flaws.
That’s it, I reckon. The crux of it. We all know what needs to be improved most of the time but we don’t want it confirmed for us, so we avoid critique. Or approach it with the utmost fear.
This is what we should adapt and overcome - face your flaws and know you’re far from perfect. Embrace the comments of others and collect those bricks to build your stairway.
You could, of course, avoid this altogether, doing your own thing and being quite content, albeit quite ignorant, with yourself.
Or you overcome that and can start climbing.
Recent comments