One of the hardest lessons you’ll likely have to learn in life is how to take criticism. When you master this, you open up to greatness.

For anyone who shares a part of her soul with others, criticism is extremely hard, but oh so necessary. Whenever you put your work out for public consumption, you have to be okay with knowing your work is not going to be taken in with open arms by everyone.

Most Challenging

The hardest part of criticism is you never know how this feedback is going to be delivered. Sometimes, it’s offered in a sincere gesture that’s packaged up neatly and as gently as possible. But, not often. Most times, it’s tossed at you in hurtful lashes, poking at not only the work you’ve done, but at your personal side as well.

I had one hurtful piece of criticism that tormented me for a long time. Here’s what happened. I had narrated one of my novels, The Muse, for Audible, and it took me years to record and produce it. Keep in mind, I worked tirelessly, giving all the love I had to that book. And in one sentence, all that hard work shattered before me when someone took a personal jab at a part of me. She made my fun of the way I said my ‘S’.  She made fun of something I wasn’t even aware of, and it hurt like hell. Suddenly, I was self-conscious of it. I heard the mispronounced S I hadn’t before heard from the past forty some odd years of being alive.

I began searching YouTube for any videos I could find that could help me get rid of this so-called speech impediment a complete stranger told me I had. One that I apparently should never allow anyone to listen to because it might hurt their ears.

I searched and searched and found a few videos that offered exercise ideas. These ideas simply didn’t solve my issue. That criticism sat in my stomach like a rock, as a result.

So there I stood one day, in front of my recording studio. My spouse had built it for me to record my books for Audible. This recording studio cost thousands of dollars to create.

Time to Contemplate

What would I do now? Do I dare record another book? If not, what the hell was I going to do with all that wasted equipment and the special soundproof space my spouse so carefully constructed for me? Was I to sell everything on eBay?

Well, I couldn’t let that happen. So, I attempted to begin narrating another book. I stopped after the first page because my darn S echoed like an off-beat string of musical notes in my ears. In fact, I could hear nothing but that prolonged S. As a result, I never read another one of my novels for Audible again.

Uncertainty is as much a part of life as breathing. Most of us fear uncertainty on some level. We may fear things like getting into a car accident on the way to the grocery store, losing our job that we love, finding out we didn’t get that promotion we sought, missing out on a fun vacation because of a lack of funds, having our car not start on an important meeting day.

You’re not alone if you’ve had these thoughts. But what makes us have these thoughts in the first place? Some experts might say it’s our intolerance of uncertainty that causes us to fear it.

The fear of uncertainty

Interestingly enough, many of us view uncertainty as a bad thing. We attribute a bad outcome to its presence. But what if that uncertainty is necessary for you to get to a new place, a better place? What if these uncertain situations create good outcomes in the end?

I don’t believe a lot of us think of it this way. And by not, we may very well be missing out on a beautiful broad scale view of our life.

In life anything can happen. On a very basic level, we all accept this. Why? Because it’s fact. Life is full of uncertainty. That’s the fact. We can’t escape it. Therefore, we have two choices. Accept it or resist it.

Resist and Persist

Of course by resisting anything, you actually cause it to persist. Why? Because your thoughts center on it, forcing it under the rug, into the corner, out of view. And we all know what happens when we center our thoughts on something, right? We bring it into our reality and give it control. And, we also breathe air into it. The result? We fuel its fire.

We resist the current state and thus end up focusing on what we don’t want instead of what we actually do want. So what’s the solution here? Well, instead of fighting the uncertainty, we can embrace it. We embrace what’s happening so we can focus on its lessons and possibilities.

So, how the hell do you do that?

Allow yourself to feel the pain associated with the uncertainty.

Firstly, don’t run from it. Secondly, don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. When you embrace the situation, you are no longer the victim of circumstance. You are the creator of a new state of being.

Be open to the lessons.

Accept that what is happening is happening. There’s always a lesson to learn from adversity and challenges. Facing them is how we grow and become stronger. Often the pain we feel when faced with an uncertain situation stems from our thinking that this shouldn’t be happening in the first place.

No one deserves trauma, illness, or heartbreak. It sucks when it happens. It’s scary. It feels like a curse, or an undeserved punishment. That point is obvious, and unmistakably true. But here’s another truth, they happen. And when they do, we need to deal with them. To question why things happen, is a waste. They simply happen, unfortunately. They touch every single living being on this planet in some capacity.

The more beneficial question to ask is what can be learned from all of this. Because when we place ourselves in the seeking of knowledge position, we not only help ourselves to rise above the pain, but we help others as well. And that’s really what living a life of purpose is all about, right?

If you want to start winning in life, you need to look at disappointment in a whole new light. Disappointment. Everyone has suffered from it. It sweeps in like a tide, ebbing and flowing, leaving us a little unbalanced and beaten from its swift and mighty force. The feeling of disappointment sucks and can derail a person very quickly.

I think the worst disappointment came to me about twenty years ago when I first graduated college as an undergrad. I had this idea that I wanted to go to grad school and pursue a Ph.D. so that I could teach communications in college.

The Path to Start Winning

A professor impressed this idea in my brain. I’ve always been that kind of person who wants to please others and prove to them and myself that I can accomplish anything I put my mind to. So, I began visiting universities up and down the east coast of the United States. I did so to determine if their program was one in which I wanted to enroll.

I narrowed my choices down to a few in Florida. In love with the tropical vibe, I could see myself basking in the warmth, book in hand. Also, I loved that I could ride my bike to classes, even in the middle of January if I wanted. Such great reasons to enroll in a demanding masters and doctoral program, of course. I really wanted to start winning.

Kick in the Butt

Anyway, right before I started my research into schools, I started working at a financial firm. How did that go? Well, let’s just say, I’d rather suffer with the flu than sit in a cubicle wearing a headset consoling angry shareholders!

This disdain towards my job only fed my hunger to ace the Graduate Record Exam. If I did that, I had a good chance to land a full ride waiver on my tuition. I’d earn my spot in a very competitive teacher assistance program.

My GRE’s had to be superb. So, never deterred from a good challenge, and having just graduated Summa cum lade from Rhode Island College, I thought piece of cake. My future is about to unfold! Without giving anything else a thought, I put everything into this dream towards a Ph.D.

Total Serious Mode to Start Winning

I committed to studying for the GRE’s four hours every single day before going to my full time job. I purchased an exam prep book and got serious. For six months straight, I studied, taking those practice tests over and over again. I aimed to raise my score each time, a score that sat pretty low. Frustrated, I kept at it, insistent that I would ace this exam no matter what it took. I set a goal and I was going to start winning, dammit.

So, as the exam date neared, I upped my studying time to six hours a day.

Exam Day

When the day arrived, my stomach knotted. I couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep the night before.

I drove to the exam location with the weight of my hefty goal on my shoulders. It sucked the air right out of my lungs. I walked into that exam room nauseous and dizzy, trembling like I was facing a death squad.

Ready or Not

Well, the exam began whether I was ready for it or not. It was timed. That timer sat in the top right hand corner of that screen and tortured me. I raced against the minutes, attempting to clear my mind so I could think. The past six months of my life poked at me. All the effort I put into preparing, the sacrifices to my spouse, to my family, to my health, to my freaking life, crashed down on me.

I panicked. Sitting in that chair, I trembled and guessed my way through the entire exam. My mind couldn’t think strategically, methodically, productively. It couldn’t think at all. I had pressured myself to the point of a breakdown in that room. I failed the exam miserably. Not just by small standards. Oh no, absolutely miserably. My plan to start winning faded. I would have to wait another three months to take the exam again.

My goal of getting a teacher assistantship, actually even getting accepted into a graduate program, died. It died right there in that bright room with its unforgiving fluorescent lights and deafening hum.

Epic Fail

I felt like the world’s biggest failure. Embarrassed and disappointed, I hung my head in shame. Thinking back now, I wasn’t too far removed from my character, Faith, in The Curvy Side of Life, hitting one of those major curves in life.

I wanted to prove I could set my mind to anything and do it. And, then I failed. What would I say to my spouse, my parents, and my friends? How would they think of me? I always worried about what everyone else would think of me.

Anyway, I had no idea what I would do with the rest of my life. I hated my job. And, quite frankly, I had put so much time into this venture, it hurt to let it go. To witness it shrivel up before my eyes and fall to the ground in a pile of dust killed me. I thought my life was over.