10 Tools for Dealing with Criticism and Rejection!
By: Linda Dessau
Ouch! Whether it's feedback we've asked for, an unsolicited remark called out from the audience or a simple "no" result of an audition or submission process, criticism and rejection are a huge part of our lives as creative artists.
Sometimes we're so fearful of being criticized or rejected that we keep our creativity bottled up and don't let it out.
Other times we constantly adapt what we create, focusing only on the "market" and what they seem to be liking or disliking this week. Then we end up feeling like we're not truly expressing our creative impulses.
10 Tools for Dealing with Criticism and Rejection
1. Be Open. You may be hoping for a specific reaction or response to your work, or a specific result of an audition, gallery submission, performance or contest entry. If you've done your best and you're rejected or criticized, you might feel that you've "failed", and it's probably hard to see anything positive about the situation. Try to be open to the possibility that this "failure" is actually leading you to something else, usually better than what you thought you wanted. As I read once in Cheryl Richardson's newsletter, "Any rejection is God's protection".
