How the hell are you supposed to handle the criticism that can come when you create a personal brand and start showing up and becoming visible to the world?
It’s something we discussed in this weeks Brand You podcast episode, and it was such a great conversation.
Toby started us off by sharing that he actually hasn’t faced any criticism through his personal brand, yet, I did say that he might open himself up to it now he’s said that out loud 😂
But genuinely, we agreed on the fact that Toby’s personal brand shares how lovely a person he is, he puts across a friendly, nice persona, because that’s actually what he’s like. But the content he puts out isn’t controversial, and it doesn’t need to be, so he probably won’t face a lot.
That being said, this is the internet, and people on the internet can use their screens to hide behind and create fake profiles, so you can still face criticism even if you are the nicest person in the world.
In the podcast we break it down into the different people who can give the criticism online:
The people you know, friends, family, colleagues etc.
The people you don’t know, keyboard warriors etc.
I find that most of the criticism I’ve ever received online have come from profiles who are hiding, or are fake. They like to throw out criticism online, because they know there are no repercussion’s to them when they do that. The criticism is thrown by faceless accounts, who aren’t even brave enough to show who they really are and give out criticism to others.
To these people, I find it so easy to brush off, and almost laughable – these kind of comments make great content for me to use.
The other criticism that comes from people you actually know, can be much harder to take. It can also knock your confidence and knock you off course to achieve your goals. So this is the criticism that you really need to work on being able to take onboard in a constructive way, not a way that stops you.
Some criticism can be used to learn and improve. If we take some comments onboard that could actually improve what we’re doing, those could be really beneficial and actually help us grow ourselves or our businesses if we implement the learning from them. But sometimes that takes us to step back from the comment, calm our internal triggers down, and then let the lessons sink in.
But sometimes criticism is just meant to harm, and if it is that bad, you do always have the power of reporting and blocking the people who made the remark/s.
There is also an element that if criticism has come from the people closest to us, it can come from a place of fear from our loved ones. Fear that we are growing, and evolving so far from where they are that they’re scared they will lose us. If it comes from friends, then maybe it’s time to upgrade your friendships. The friends you had when you were younger don’t necessarily need to be the ones who last forever, maybe they were great for a period of time, but now you need to find different friendship groups who are more aligned with this stage of growth.
That might be hard to swallow. And there might be a period of time you need to go through that is more lonely, till your new friends appear. But this is why growth is uncomfortable, it requires us to change, and that might not sit well with some.
There’s also the fact that when you’re creating content for your ideal audience, that 80% of your online audience is probably not ideal. It’s the 20% you’re creating the content for – when criticism hits, it will come from the 80%, the other 20% they’re loving your point of view, and these are the ones who matter!
It can be tough when you create a personal brand, but this is why you have to really understand the bigger picture of why you’re doing this, when you have a big enough reason for becoming more visible, then when tough times hit, you have a reason to push through. It won’t stop you.
Myself and Toby get really honest in this episode, and I really do think you’ll enjoy it and get lots of value from it. Listen in through the links below:
Don’t let the criticism stop you, be aware it may come, and when it does take it with a pinch of salt. You are good enough, you can do this, you will get over these comments 👊
