The Snowball Effect

Kristin Cuthriel

Encourage rather than criticize

30 Comments

The quickest way to expose your insecurities is to be hypercritical of others.

When you spend your time criticizing others, it says a lot more about you than the one that you are criticizing.  Those who spend their lives finding fault in others are most critical of themselves.  People feeling content with who they are, do not feel the need to put others down.  The fault finder, full of self-contempt and often lacking self-awareness, criticizes others in order to boost a fragile ego.

Encourage rather than criticize.  Empathize rather than judge.  Become self-aware.  Before flinging insults, take the time to look in the mirror and work on your own self-growth.  Life is too short to be spent dwelling on the faults of others. Instead, try to find something positive about everyone that you meet.  If there is a person in your life who habitually puts you down, remember that the problem may reside within them, not you.

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Comments

  4. wordsfromanneli says

    It’s always easier to be critical, isn’t it? I think that’s why so many people choose that route. I like this post. Thanks for sharing it, Kristin. Good advice.

    Reply

  5. Anonymous says

    Absolutely!
    I am a neat nick and one child of mine just either doesn’t see or care about chaos, so I
    Try very hard not to think about it, talk about it, comment…..or help……I think as they get older they will see it and set their home in order, both of these married young adults were the kids in the families that didn’t care about such things…….but they have so many other positives going for them, I look to those qualitities, and look away, from the mess and focus on them!

    Reply

    • Kristin Barton Cuthriell says

      I am sure that being a neat nick and living with someone who doesn’t care about the chaos is difficult. I am glad that you see all of the positive qualities. Thank you for commenting. Have a great day.

      Reply

    • Kristin Barton Cuthriell says

      Yes, Stuart. For those who don’t know, Stuart is talking about projection. We have a tendency to disown things that we do not like about ourselves and ascribe them to other people. One example: Tony dislikes people who are judgemental and assumes that people are often judging him. What Tony may not realize is that it is he, who is often judgemental. Thank you so much, Stuart. Have a terrific Monday!

      Reply

  7. Judy says

    Hi Kristin,
    Thanks for the reminder. It doesn’t cost us anything to smile, say kind or encouraging words, or hold back a negative thought, but I still need the encouragement to be encouraging!
    Judy

    Reply

  8. Pamela says

    Hi Kristin, Thanks for the great resources. I read the AP article, as I’ve just dealt with another backhanded criticism from a family member about nursing my LO arising from her views on the Time Attachment article. This family member is very persistent about interrogating me about my choices as a mom and I’m losing my patience with this behavior, so this article was really helpful. And your piece is a good reminder; seeing the good in others, especially when it can be challenging, is the right way to live. Sometimes it can be easier to judge than to be kind and emotionally generous, but it takes something away from ourselves and brings negativity into our relationships, so it’s good to keep focused and minimize criticism. Thanks for the reminder.

    Reply

  11. fruitaliniyogi says

    I try to remind myself of this often. I started focusing on my own thoughts many years ago and being very mindful about the issues I have with others and insecurities I project onto others. I have a family member(and know many others) who are hiding some deep insecurities and it can be very difficult to remember that the almost constant criticisms are a reflection of their own sense of self-worth. What I don’t know is how to curve the quantity of criticisms.

    It seems that I had the ability to inspire positivity with my own communication style, but I am out of practice, or I don’t have the patience or I have too much on my mind now, and I just avoid the negative comments as much as possible, which seems to be a cop-out. I struggle with keeping my mind in neutral and just acknowledge that the issues brought up come from within and aren’t really about me and communicating at all for fear of being treated cruelly. Yikes!

    Thanks for posting this, it is extremely timely for me.

    Reply

  12. John says

    This is a rare post of yours, Kristin, with which I do not agree. I don’t see this world as suffering from too many judgmental people, but from too many people who either have bad judgment or are afraid to speak up and take a stand, be judgmental. All evil needs in order to exist is for good people to do nothing—and to sit quietly by and not judge.

    The faults and foibles of others are (or can be) things we can learn from—cautionary tales. There’s nothing wrong with looking at others’ actions with a critical or discerning eye. We can learn about our own faults by spotting them first in others. The key, of course, is making the jump and trying our own judgments on for size and seeing if they might not apply to ourselves even better.

    To my mind, criticizing or “judging” another is much different from putting another down or insulting him or her.

    Each of us has good parts to ourselves and not so good (or even bad or rotten) parts. The rotten stuff needs to be looked at without softeners and labeled for what it is—call a spade a spade, and what’s crooked crooked—while the good stuff needs to be encouraged. And critical thinking (thinking critically) is what will help us to do this.

    Thinking critically is not something that is encouraged very much in our culture, but it’s an essential tool to have in making sense of the world. In fact, learning to think critically is one of our premiere forms of defense against gullibility, naïveté, ignorance—even the ignorance of fooling ourselves with our own bs and self-deception.

    Whitman wrote:

    “There are those who teach only
    the sweet lessons of peace and safety;
    But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love,
    That they readily meet invasions, when they come.”

    I would caution any- and everyone about being too quick to decry people who are judgmental or critical—their criticalness may not only be a cry/call for love; there might also be a baby in that bath-water that many are trying to throw out.

    I think that the real key is to remind those who are being judgmental/critical to be fair about their criticisms—to examine why they are being critical, and to see if their criticisms might not actually be projections that thus apply better to themselves than others. We often see first in others what we’re not willing to look at or admit in ourselves. But seeing it first in others can be an important first step. But the second step is equally crucial as well—trying our criticisms on ourselves for size as well.

    The best solution, of course, would be to remove the plank from our own eye first, that way we could see more clearly when trying to remove the speck from another’s eye. But sometimes it’s not just a speck in another’s eye, and sometimes it’s not a beam that’s in our eye.

    And it requires discernment—i.e. critical thinking—to be able to tell the difference and to sort out our own motivations for wanting to criticize something or someone.

    Reply

    • Kristin Barton Cuthriell says

      John-
      Thank you for taking the time to write such a long well thought out comment. You have brought up some good points. I do agree that discernment and critical thinking are very important. While many critical comments are often projections, sometimes people are calling a spade a spade. The important thing here, especially when dealing with children, is to call a spade a spade with encouragement rather than with cruelty. We can benefit from looking within to create greater self-awareness. What belongs to self and what belongs to others can be difficult to discern. Many times therapy can help with this process. Thank you again.

      Reply

      • John says

        Thank you for checking your spam folder, Kristin, I appreciate it. 🙂

        And thank you for responding.

        I think the biggest thing I was trying to get at is to think critically about judgmentalness/criticalness. Is it all really bad or unproductive? The terms seemed not to be very well-defined and so that in itself can cause a lot of confusion.

        And the other thing is certainly when we’re being critical or judgmental, to think critically about why we’re doing that—why we’re being critical/judgmental, etc. And that level of thinking—actually meta-thinking—seems to require as well as create greater self-awareness. Which to my mind is always a good thing!

        And when dealing with children cruelty should obviously be off the table as an option. And encouragement should be a go to. But not everything responds to encouragement—the world and people, even children, are just not all wired that way. Sometimes time-outs and being sternly told NO in no uncertain terms, and other forms on *dis*couragement and discipline need to be applied. But, yes, encourage whenever possible, then discipline or constructive loving criticism next. There is much wisdom to the ways and wiles of SuperNanny when dealing with kiddoes.

        And with adults, there is much wisdom at times in the ways and wiles of Gordon Ramsey or Robert Irvine or Simon Cowell or even Dr. Laura. Sometimes confrontation means you care and shows how much you care. Sometimes being a bit of a drill sergeant isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As Rumi put it: “Unkindness from the wise is better than kindness from the ignorant.” Or as Ken Wilber and Chögyam Trungpa (Pema Chödrön’s first “guru”) both have talked about, the difference between real compassion (which can sometimes seem/feel rather uncompassionate and tough-minded) and “idiot” compassion.

        Thanks again for checking your spam folder and for responding. Kindest regards,

        John

        Reply

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