Don’t criticize, condemn or complain

‘How to win friends and influence people’ by Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie has 30 basic principles that help you Enhance relationships and build trust, gain cooperation from the people around you and they show you how you can be an effective leader.

By applying the number one principle, people will not only like you better, they will see a person who is open to their way of thinking.

Think about it...

• If you have an opinion and an other person criticizes you... how do you feel?
• If you do something and there is someone judging you for it... how do you feel?
• If you hear someone complaining and you don’t feel like it is a big deal... how do you feel?

It is very easy to say that we will stop criticizing, condemn or complain, but it’s not easy to do.

Ever since I’ve read the book “How to win friends and influence people” I have been trying to apply this first principle. If I am truly honest with myself... I don’t think that I have ever succeeded to last 24 hours without one of these three. There is always that typical situation where you just can’t resist it.

People seem like they are programmed to judge. Mostly people judge the other person because they can feel better about themselves. Giving a compliment is hard for most people because then they admit that the other has done something good. Maybe something better than they did. Maybe better than they ever could. Maybe they are afraid when giving that compliment, the other will feel better about themselves and he or she will get to much self-confidence. Maybe the other person will get empowered and do more good things and grow even faster. Faster than we do... and where will we be at that point? Still the same person who is doing the daily routine? Feeling that nothing exciting ever happens in our life? We just have to keep working the same struggle day in day out?

And because of what is just said... this is why “criticism is often a disguised compliment”!

If we see things happen around you, let’s try to not be judgmental. Think about the other persons perspective. Try to understand why that person does what he or she does. Who are we to judge? The only reason we do this is because subconsciously we are eager to feel better about ourselves and the way we handle things. It's OK to not share the same opinion, to not have the same point of view, to want it to go the other way... stop for a minute and see it from the other persons point of view. If still not convinced, ask them how they see it so we can understand better. If you still don’t understand it, think about how their way of thinking impacts your life. Is it worth the trouble? OK, try to dig deeper, if not... wish the other person all the luck and do more of what makes you happy.

I truly hope that my point on this topic was interesting for you. If you liked what you have read, or even if you have additional advise, please comment and maybe we can have a chat about it.

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