CHAPTER TEN
CRITIC YOURSELF
Criticisms always arrives the path of the champion. As much as people look up to him for inspiration and direction, he also gets people who criticize him for his every move. These persons never see well in what he does. Their goal is to bring him down.
Criticism is the act of expressing disapproval of somebody or something and opinions about their faults or bad qualities
Champions are prone to criticism. As much as the champion is great at doing what he does, he has his imperfections and limitations that he continually strives to outdo. As much as you desire that championship status and you are working hard towards it, there are still many parts of you that won’t change because of the championship status you are gunning for.
Expect criticism to come your way. Don’t feel bad about it, it’s part of the championship pursuit. Don’t think that because of the criticisms, you cannot become the champion you want to be. Criticisms should spur you towards championship. It should drive you to even do more work on your weakness that has being noticed by your critics.
Do you have to wait till critics arrive on your path to championship? No. you don’t have to wait for the critics. Criticisms should make you feel good that you are making impact and people are noting your impact and discovering how well you could do what you do better.
Here is truth. You can be your own critic. You don’t have to wait till your critics arrive for you to discover your place or status on your push to championship. It’s like waiting till some other person tells you to climb the next step when you are on your first step and what you want is on your fifth step. You don’t need someone else to tell you when you qualify to move. You just have to move up. That’s why you have to learn to critic yourself and become the one to qualify your capacity not others.
Why should you allow some other person have the privilege of finding and qualifying your gifts when you have all the capacity in you to find who you really are and to discover your strength in the face of your weaknesses. It is not the place of those external critics to make you. It is your place. You only gave them the opportunity to make you feel down casted by showing them your limitations and they leveraged on it to try to drag you down
You have to take your place as your critic. These may seem weird but it’s not. You have to leverage on your own capacity to discover yourself. You discovered that you could be a champion. Others didn’t. They can’t take the place of finding faults around you. You shouldn’t allow it. If you’ve discovered your championship, discover your limitations.
Many times while on display showing our championship attribute, we make allusions to our limitations. We hear statements like that’s my weakness and you reveal it to the world. Do they have to know? No!
As soon as you begin to discover your path to championship, begin to plan toward developing your own critic system. A system you could use to discover your limitations without some other person using it against you.
Companies create quality control systems to ensure that what comes through them is standard quality product. These quality control systems unit analyses their products find faults around it. If it’s good, it goes out and if it’s not, the product is returned to the production system for reproduction. These companies understand that it would cost so much for one product that is not well produced to get to a radical critical minded customer who would charge for damages.
The interesting thing about these companies is that they create a system to hear out the criticisms of others. They have customer service centers or complaints centers to hear out what complaints the customers have. The companies learn to develop a way to get the criticisms and work out how to make their products better.
We cannot condemn criticisms in totality. I’ve said already that they are needed; we need them when they arrive. But you don’t have to wait till they arrive you can make out a way for them to arrive so that you know where you aren’t doing well.
You have to develop the capacity to hear others even when they are critical of your hard work. Don’t just throw them off because you think they are always critical. Their nonsense could make sense. Develop a listening hear but don’t ponder on everything you hear. Learn to hear but don’t rush to do. Measure what you hear on the scale of truth.
I am my own critic. I don’t wait for people to criticize my writings or work before I know I have to do some work on them. I read over my writings to restructure the sentences and reorganize the books. I get people criticizing me about my writings when I send them to media houses. I remember the first write-up I sent to a media house. The editor of the print media replied that my work wasn’t good enough for his paper. He was plain and I felt bad that my writing dream which was just starting to tee was being rubbished. I wasn’t even asking for money. All I wanted was the opportunity to bless people with my God- given wisdom.
I’ve learnt never to listen to the critical babblings of others. If I had listened to the editor, this book won’t be in your hands. Yes my writing may still not be perfect yet and I know its not but I’m going ahead with my desirable championship state because I know where I want to be.
Don’t be limited by the limitations people place around you because they think you aren’t good enough. Listen to them but get going because they don’t matter. Those that matter will find a way to tell you in a simple polite manner what’s wrong about your idea or quest and will find a way to help you.
Critic yourself and all you will have to fail is you.