Criticism is toxic to healthy relationships. While it’s okay to express frustration if someone is behaving in a way that hurts you, being overly critical can cause tension in any relationship over time. First, work on changing your own behavior to catch criticism before it begins. From there, find effective ways to communicate if someone bothers you. Lastly, work on educating yourself and challenging any assumptions you have that make you an overly critical person. Keep reading on to know how to stop criticizing others.
Contents
- 1 How To Stop Criticizing Others
- 1.1 1. Get over yourself
- 1.2 2. Realize how many times per day others give you a pass
- 1.3 3. Before you criticize, remember that you don’t know the whole story
- 1.4 4. Try Something Else not Judgy
- 1.5 5. Curious Detective
- 1.6 6. Be realistic
- 1.7 7. Depersonalize other people’s actions
- 1.8 8. Focus on positives
- 1.9 9. Work on yourself
How To Stop Criticizing Others
1. Get over yourself
When you have the time and energy to always assess and grade the performance of others, you might be a tad diluted about how well you’re doing. By taking the time to criticize others, you signal that you feel you’ve taken care of things quite nicely in your own domain and have a little extra time on your hands to “help” the poor souls around you. The next time you’re tempted to criticize, ask yourself if your attention might be better applied to some of your own weaknesses. Ever wondered what’s behind your critical outlook? It’s a question worth asking.
2. Realize how many times per day others give you a pass
It’s not that the people around you don’t think you get things wrong from time to time. It’s just that often they choose to quietly give you grace, rather than taking out their bright yellow verbal highlighter and making it known. If others capitalized on every potential opportunity to correct or criticize you, it would likely be very humbling.
3. Before you criticize, remember that you don’t know the whole story
Even with your family, you don’t always know the whole story. You don’t know how hard your husband has genuinely tried to get finished at the office early to take care of some things around the house but to no avail. You don’t always know that your child really did study for the quiz; it was just really hard. And you certainly don’t know that your coworker is dragging his feet on the project because he’s quietly struggling with a serious health problem.
4. Try Something Else not Judgy
There’s another improv game where a moderator stops a scene and tells one of the improvisers to try something else. It’s called “New Choice,” and it’s a good reminder that our first choice doesn’t have to be the only choice.
So the next time you catch yourself being critical, tell yourself to make a new choice and try something less critical.
5. Curious Detective
Curious Detective is about pretending you’re a detective and gathering as many clues about people as possible. Once again, it’s about gathering facts instead of making assumptions. This will help you be less critical and judgmental by forcing you to be more curious about others.
6. Be realistic
Critical people often have very high expectations of those around them. It’s possible your tendency to criticize stems from expecting too much from those around you. If you find yourself consistently annoyed or disappointed with others, it may be a good idea to adjust your expectations.
7. Depersonalize other people’s actions
Oftentimes, critical people have a tendency to personalize events that occur around them. This can bleed out into personalizing the actions of others. If someone gets on your nerves or makes your life difficult, you may feel the urge to criticize that person. However, remember other people have their own separate lives and struggles. If someone did something to bother you, the majority of the time their actions were not directed at you.
8. Focus on positives
Oftentimes, being critical results from how you’re choosing to see a situation. Everyone has flaws and imperfections. However, the vast majority of people have good qualities that outweigh these flaws. Try to focus on a person’s positive qualities over their negative ones.
9. Work on yourself
Is there an issue in your own life that you’re taking out on those around you? If you’re unhappy with your job, relationship, social life, or other aspects of yourself, try to address these issues. The stress of a negative attitude can affect your overall health and well-being, leading you to unable to handle stress. This can lead to poor social interactions. If you take steps to be a more positive person, you may be better at interacting with others. You’ll be able to cope with conflict in a more effective manner.