What If They Have a Point? How to Receive Constructive Criticism With Grace

Day 251 of a 365-day commitment to show up and write my truth

I was sitting in church on Sunday when the priest told a story that followed me all the way home.

He'd recently been on a retreat where people were asked to give one another honest feedback. At some point, a parishioner told him that something he'd done had disappointed them. And his first response wasn't curiosity. It was defense.

He started explaining why he'd done what he'd done. Why he'd said what he'd said. The circumstances, the reasoning, every piece of context that might prove there was another side to the story.

Then, somewhere in the middle of defending himself, he stopped.

He realized he hadn't once thought about what it might have taken for that person to walk up to him in the first place. Maybe they'd rehearsed the conversation in the car on the way there. Maybe they were nervous. Maybe some part of them had hoped it would be easier to just say nothing at all.

I sat in the pew and thought: oh. I know this one. Very well.

Constructive Criticism Can Feel Like an Attack Before It Feels Like Information

Not long ago, my husband gave me some feedback. I'll spare you the details — partly because they don't matter, and partly because the man did not marry me so that every disagreement could eventually become a Karma Penguin case study. But he told me something about myself that I did not enjoy hearing.

And I reacted beautifully. Calmly. Thoughtfully. With tremendous emotional maturity.

I'm kidding, of course. I built a defense so fast you'd have thought I'd been preparing for it my whole life. But I do this. And I do that. You don't understand because— I had evidence. I had examples. Somewhere between becoming his wife and hearing one uncomfortable observation, I had also apparently become my own defense attorney.

Here's what makes that especially humbling: I coach people for a living. I've spent years in sales and business, giving feedback, asking for it, helping other people step outside their own heads and see a situation from a different angle. And still, in that moment, I didn't hear information. I felt wounded — almost physically, like I'd been shoved. Not raging anger. Something quieter and more immediate than that. Just hurt.

So I reacted from the hurt, the way a child lashes out before she's even figured out what happened. Not my proudest moment.

It wasn't until later, once the sting had faded enough for me to actually think, that another thought arrived, uninvited: darn it, he had a point. Which was deeply, deeply inconvenient.

Sometimes the Thing We Least Want to Hear Is Worth Examining

There's something unflattering I've noticed about us as people: the behavior that drives us absolutely up the wall in someone else is often worth a second look in ourselves.

Someone else being defensive? We clock it instantly. Someone else always needing to explain why they're right? Please — we could give a whole presentation on it. And then somebody gently suggests we might do the same thing sometimes, and suddenly the circumstances are completely different. No, no. Mine isn't like that.

Maybe it isn't. But what if, once in a while, it is?

What if, instead of racing to prove the other person wrong, we practiced saying: "You may have a point. Let me sit with that." Not you're right about everything. Not your opinion now gets to define who I am. Just — maybe there's something here worth looking at.

There's a real strength in being able to say that. I haven't always had it. But I'm learning.

I Used to Ask for Feedback When What I Really Wanted Was Applause

I had another moment recently that showed me how much I've changed. I was on a business call, and I asked several people for real feedback — the honest kind. And they gave it to me. Some of it confirmed things I already suspected needed work. Some of it showed me things I hadn't seen at all.

I was grateful. Truly. I could feel how generously people were giving me their time and their honesty. Nobody was trying to diminish me — they were helping me see something more clearly so I could make it better.

And I thought about who I used to be. Years ago, I could absolutely ask someone, "What do you think?" But if I'm being fully honest, there were times what I actually wanted to hear was, "You're fabulous. No changes. Everything is perfect." That's not feedback. That's applause with a question mark tacked onto the end.

There's nothing wrong with wanting encouragement — we all need people who remind us of what we're doing well. But if I say I want to grow, and then flinch away from every answer that makes me uncomfortable, I don't actually want feedback. I want reassurance. Those are two very different things, and learning to tell them apart has been part of my own becoming.

Receiving Constructive Criticism Means Remembering the Other Person Is Vulnerable, Too

This is the part of the priest's story that stayed with me the longest.

We tend to focus entirely on how exposed we feel when someone hands us difficult feedback. And we are exposed — someone is holding up a mirror and asking us to look at something we may not have noticed, or worked very hard not to. That's uncomfortable, full stop.

But sometimes the person holding the mirror is scared too.

I've been on that side of the conversation. I've had things I needed to say that I didn't want to say, because I loved the person I was saying them to. You rehearse the words. You soften them. You rewrite the sentence in your head a dozen times and wonder if it's worth the risk of tension, or whether they'll hear your intention at all instead of just the criticism. Sometimes silence would be so much easier.

So now, when someone I trust tells me something hard, I try to remember: maybe this cost them something too. Maybe they're only saying it because the relationship matters enough to risk the discomfort. Love isn't always telling us what feels good. Sometimes love is brave enough to tell us what might actually help us grow.

Sometimes Feedback Touches a Much Older Bruise

I think there's a reason certain feedback lands so much harder than the words themselves would seem to justify.

Criticism puts us in a vulnerable spot, and for some of us, that vulnerability isn't new. Maybe there was a parent, a teacher, a coach, someone in our childhood who didn't know how to correct without shaming. Maybe mistakes didn't feel like you did something wrong. Maybe they felt like there is something wrong with you. Those are two very different messages to carry.

So years later, someone who loves us can say, gently, "Can I tell you something I noticed?" — and somehow a much younger version of us walks into the room too.

I don't think childhood gets to be the excuse for everything we do as adults. But I do think real self-awareness includes noticing when today's conversation has quietly reopened yesterday's wound. The feedback is happening now. The pain we're reacting from might be a lot older. And if we can recognize that difference, maybe we can stop asking the person standing in front of us to pay for something someone else did years ago. That's hard work. It's also freeing work.

Receiving Feedback With Grace Does Not Mean Accepting Disrespect

This distinction matters to me enormously, so I want to be clear about it: not all criticism is wise. Not all criticism is loving. And not everyone who says "I'm just giving you feedback" is actually offering something constructive.

I've been on that side of it too — someone dressing up judgment as help. There was a point when I realized what I was receiving wasn't specific, wasn't respectful, and wasn't rooted in any real desire to see me do better. Lines got crossed, professionally and financially, and I made the decision to stop working with that person. I don't regret it.

Because receiving constructive criticism with grace was never meant to mean surrendering your discernment. You don't have to take every opinion home and build it a guest room. You're still allowed to ask: Is this person speaking to me with respect? Is there something specific here I can actually look at? Does this person want something for me, or something from me? Sometimes the honest answer is no. Sometimes you listen carefully, weigh it fairly, and decide, that one doesn't belong to me. You're allowed to set it down. That's not defensiveness. That's discernment.

Maybe the Most Important Part Is the Pause

I don't think getting better at this requires some elaborate process. For me, it starts somewhere much smaller.

Pause. Let the person finish. Don't interrupt halfway through because you've already drafted your rebuttal. Breathe. Notice that you feel hurt without immediately deciding the hurt means they're wrong. Then, once your nervous system isn't shouting quite so loudly, ask yourself: is there truth here?

Maybe there's a lot. Maybe there's five percent. Maybe there's none at all. But even five percent of truth can teach you something, if you're willing to actually look at it. And if this is someone who loves you — someone who's earned the right to have a hard conversation with you — maybe ask one more question: what might it have taken for them to tell me this?

That question changes everything. Suddenly you're not standing on opposite sides of a courtroom. You're just two people, trying to understand each other.

Growth Requires Being Willing to Hear Something Besides "You're Fabulous"

I used to think strength meant knowing exactly who I was and defending that version of myself at all costs. I think strength might actually look different. Maybe it sounds more like: "I hadn't thought of it that way." "Tell me more." "That was hard to hear, but I want to sit with it." "You may be right."

Those sentences don't make us weak. They don't hand our sense of self over to somebody else. We still get to decide. We can listen, think, pray, reflect — keep what's ours, release what isn't, change what needs changing. That's what real growth looks like. Not blindly accepting everything people say about us. Not blindly rejecting it either. Just becoming brave enough to actually look.

Maybe that's what grace looks like in moments like these. Not perfection. Not never feeling hurt. Not smiling sweetly while someone hands you something painful. Just enough space between the sting and the response to choose who you want to be next.

I'm still learning that. I suspect I always will be.

So the next time someone you trust says something that makes every defense in your body stand up at once — wait, just a beat, before you send them into battle. Let the person finish. Let yourself feel whatever you feel. Then gently separate the wound from the words, and ask yourself the one question my ego would honestly prefer we never discuss:

What if they have a point?

Maybe they don't.

But every once in a while — darn it — they do. And the thing we least wanted to hear becomes the thing that helps us finally see ourselves clearly. Not because someone else got to define us. But because we were brave enough to look for ourselves.

About the Author | Day 251 of 365

I'm a coach, a writer, an entrepreneur, and a mom — and apparently still someone who can receive one piece of thoughtful feedback from her husband and briefly transform into a defense attorney with a very strong closing argument.

For 251 days, I've been writing about what a real life actually looks like: motherhood, grief, healing, faith, love, business, starting over, learning to trust myself. And, apparently, the slightly humbling discovery that growth doesn't mean we stop having old reactions — it just means we recognize them a little sooner each time.

There was a version of me who asked for feedback and secretly hoped for applause. I'm grateful to her — she got me here. I'm also grateful I don't have to stay her.

Because sometimes — darn it — they have a point.

Day 251 of 365. Let's keep growing. 🐧