The Voice That Shouts the Loudest
We take note of and remember criticism much more than we do praise.
As Buddhist monk Haemin Sunim says, “The voice that criticizes and berates me is much louder than the one that cheers me on .” Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection.This perfectly describes our habit of amplifying criticism over affirmation.
When I attended the Air Force Combat Survival Training Course in 1991, a part of the course focused on teaching us how to effectively resist and survive as a prisoner of war. We spent several days in a POW camp simulation and underwent all kinds of interrogations and scenarios.
After attending, I learned that students were intended to fail several of the scenarios we experienced. The psychologists who developed the course knew that we remember our failures best, so they wanted us to fail so that we’d remember the lessons we learned when under the stress of a real situation.
Why Praise Whispers and Criticism Shouts
There are several reasons why we hear criticism much more loudly than praise.
• Negativity Bias. As Ann Janzer points out, “Negativity bias: our brains react to negative stimuli more quickly and completely than to positive stimuli.” The Writer’s Process: Getting Your Brain in Gear.
From an evolutionary standpoint, attending quickly to threats increased the odds of survival. Missing a bad news signal, such as a snake, a cougar, spoiled food, or social rejection, carried a greater cost than overlooking something pleasant.
Even today, bad headlines get many more clicks than positive headlines. And often, in making decisions, we focus more on the possible negatives than the potential positives.
• Perfectionism. Some of us have unrealistic expectations of ourselves. We feel that we should be perfect and never make mistakes. This is, of course, an impossible standard, but we still hold ourselves to a standard of perfectionism. When we’re criticized, we take it personally and feel like failures.
• Social Acceptance. We care about what people think of us. We want to be thought of in a positive way and fear that criticism will result in rejection. We’re afraid that if others knew who we really are, people with both positives and negatives, they would not like us.
Six Ways to Turn the Criticism Volume Down
So, how do we overcome this focus on criticism?
1. Practice self-compassion. Don’t beat yourself up so much. Learn to accept both the positives and the negatives.
As people, we are not all good or all bad. We are a unique blend of positives and negatives, and that’s just the way we are.
2. Challenge and reverse negative thoughts. When we hear criticism or make a mistake, we often jump to illogical and unrealistic conclusions. We over-generalize.
We try several times to learn to roller skate and fail each time. We conclude, “I’m a failure, I can’t do anything right.” Instead, a more accurate conclusion would be, “I’m not good at roller skating.”
3. Engage with others and seek perspective. Others can often see the positives where we focus only on the negatives. We need to gather feedback from others to better understand who we are and recognize that we have both positives and negatives.
4. Recognize the value of negative experiences. Everything is a learning experience, even negative ones.
Treat life as a series of experiments. Negatives sometimes tell us more about ourselves than positives; therefore, they are valuable. They teach us what we’re not good at, and areas of curiosity that are dead ends.
5. Don’t focus on past mistakes. The past and the future don’t exist. As finite human beings, we exist only in the present moment. Instead of dwelling on past mistakes or criticism, we should focus on the present and plan for the future.
6. Practice gratitude journaling. Think of at least one thing you’re grateful for each day and write about it in your journal. This helps balance the negative by highlighting the positives in our lives.
A Simple Practice to Shift Your Focus
Criticism may shout louder than praise, but it doesn’t have to run your life.
By recognizing our brain’s built-in tendency toward negativity, we can pause, take a breath, and choose a more balanced response.
Choose one practice—mindfulness meditation, gratitude journaling, self-compassion, or challenging a critical thought—and try it for a week. See if it makes a difference in how you handle criticism.
AI Note: I wrote this blog post myself, using my own words for the initial draft. I used AI only to suggest headlines, section headings, and improvements to the text.
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