Has anyone given you constructive criticism?
ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,468
Location: Long Island, New York
Constructive
and
Destructive
and in between.
Often hard for me to tell the difference and often they choose to constructively criticize me at times I am not in the mood to hear it.
_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
Dear_one
Veteran
Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
2. It comes from someone you trust--someone whom you know has your best interests at heart
3. It comes from someone skilled at the thing you are trying to do
4. It is phrased in a polite way
These are valid reasons I can take criticism for.
I just don't like when people delve into your business when you don't want them to and start preaching what you should and shouldn't do according to their beliefs and opinions and not understanding that you don't like the same things they do.
_________________
Female
some have given me constructive criticism.
some have given me destructive criticism.
some have not give me feedback.
some have just barked at me for things that i allegedly did wrong.
______________________________________________________________________
"vague, toxic, misleading or exaggerated"
exactly. (misleading, vague) when they say something like "people don't like it," it sounds like "people" means eight billion, but "people" just means two or more. and it sounds like i am not a person. and it sounds like anyone has veto authority over anything I do, just because they do not "like" it. how about: "you make people uncomfortable when you continue living. people don't like it!". (correct)
"you need to" is so easily misinterpreted. "you need to" sounds like a fact, but it is often just a command. please phrase commands like commands, not like facts.
statements involving "always" and "never" are almost always grotesque exaggerations for emphasis.
and often, someone has the nerve to give me constructive criticism, that they themselves do not follow (hypocrisy).
"lower your standards" is good advice.
No, as people that knew me back before broken Dill tended to just expect me to know things, do things, correctly, then their disappointment manifested when I didn't. I guess people had higher expectations of and/or overestimated me, because I tended to appear differently than what I was, as I still had Autism back then after all. Conversely, the other extreme also happened, with low expectations and/or underestimations. Not much middle ground with me. My father, in his condescending ways, showed me the "correct" way to do some things.
Nothing what I'd consider criticism.
I've gotten constructive criticism in writing groups for my writing (although some people in writing groups gave me criticism intended to be constructive but not actually useful because they misunderstood what I was going for, especially when I was writing different genres than the rest of my group). I've also gotten constructive criticism for social situations from counselors and from my parents.
One of the most important things for me about constructive criticism is consent. If I didn't want or need advice, it's pretty much impossible to give me criticism without hurting my feelings or getting me annoyed. It's a good idea to just outright ask "would you like some advice?" and only give the constructive criticism if they say yes. (Although my dad also asks that question before giving joke advice that's super obvious, like "don't do that again" about dropping a heavy thing on your foot.)
It's also important for people to recognize that I can tell if a piece of advice is actually likely to be helpful to me or not, and not get offended if I conclude that their advice isn't going to help. I will often explain that their advice isn't helpful and why, this is intended as a constructive criticism of my own to guide them in offering better advice, as well as to communicate why I'm not doing what they suggested. Usually, unhelpful advice comes from someone who is lacking crucial information that I didn't realize was crucial or lacking when I explained the problem. The problem is when they're unwilling to learn from my clarification, and especially when they're personally invested in me following their advice.
Constructive criticism also must be specific and involve a clear course of action that can be taken to make the situation better. So for example, in writing, "I didn't really like the main character" isn't constructive. "I didn't like the main character because he complained constantly about problems that he'd caused and was nasty to people who were being kind to him" followed by examples of the main character doing those things is a lot more constructive. It explains exactly what the perceived problem is, and points to specific scenes that you could change to fix that problem. (Of course, if the main character is intended to be unlikeable, or you conclude that this reader isn't part of your intended audience, this advice might still not be applicable.)
Dear_one
Veteran
Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
Never in my life besides my case worker occasionally, kid you not. Most of my life has when I was a kid till now has consisted of people getting upset or even enraged at me for just existing while autistic. People still talk behind my back and I just don't care. As I just know even if they actually talked to me they would just project whatever they want to see in me and not even consider what is actually my experience. It's always some passive aggressive BS too that boils down to them just saying I'm either weird, an as*hole, or laughing at me. It's always from the people who have barely interacted with me too and haven't even taken a second to get to know me and ask me anything about myself. Hello, I'm a human being that speaks English too, if you want to know why I do this or that you can just ask instead of projecting something that only fits what you want to see. When it comes to improving myself I'm all on my own.
I think it's mostly that I just grew up in a bad area and abusive home situation most of my life because the people here do it to each other too. Everyone is always trying to back stab someone else and someone who is just different especially gets the worst of it. If you wanna know how petty people can be around here my mind flashes back to a single situation where some other "normal" person decided to start trash talking someone working somewhere when I was in line at the store. Guess what this person's issue was with this person? They didn't like the condition of their clothing, I just kind of nodded and walked away. It just goes to show that so many people will completely judge a person based on the thinnest slices of them in a specific situation where they aren't even really in a natural situation. Any one of millions of things could have been going on yet this person automatically went straight to the worst possible senario and took it as truth without even actually knowing this person in any way.
Dear_one
Veteran
Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines