How to Receive Criticism and Still Enjoy Your Day

Fear of rejection is a social animal’s worst fear: when your species survival depends on cooperation, you become hypersensitive for all the clues towards or away from belonging: validation, affirmation, appreciation and reward.

So when there is criticism coming at you and you haven’t done your homework on how to respond, you’re most likely to be unhappy about the words you hear or read, and likely to respond in ways that will further make you — and the others concerned — unhappy.