EmploymentCrossing.com CEO A. Harrison Barnes discusses the importance of benefiting from criticism and not necessarily spending the majority of your time looking for praise. Most people only seek praise and this limits their career opportunities.

1. Instead of Seeking Praise, Seek Criticism

2. Handling Criticism

4. In school, for example, she would work until 4 a.m. many mornings to ensure that she got a perfect grade in a class. In her personal life, she made sure to only associate with people she knew would not criticize her.

5. Understandably, people generally do want to avoid criticism. Yet most of us realize it is a part of life and have found a way to deal with it rather than run from it.

6. When I first got to law school, I was amazed at how critical law professors were. Every single piece of logic that came out of students’ mouths was criticized-publicly.

7. Though one guy I knew dropped out, almost all of the students ended up gaining a much better understanding of what they needed to do in order to be on their toes.

8. Getting approval is very easy. If you ask enough people for approval, someone will give it to you. You can always find at least one person who will tell you exactly what you want to hear.

9. Much of the work our companies do is done overseas in places like Romania and India. In order to really thrive in this world, you need to work very hard. The people we are competing with can be much hungrier than we are, both literally and figuratively. With access to the Internet there really are no borders in business anymore. People in other countries can produce information-based products as efficiently as we can.

10. In order to keep up, you need to ask yourself what you can do to grow, evolve, and excel. Your competitors are asking themselves this. You also need to ask the people around you what you should be doing differently.

11. Although people are scared of asking for criticism, it is essential for self-improvement and growth. Make sure you are asking for constructive criticism so that you can make changes, and improve your skills, methods, and understanding of your job.

12. When you do get criticism, you also need to make absolutely sure that you listen to it and incorporate it into what you could have done better.

16. Most people fail to learn from criticism and therefore cannot adapt in response to it. You need to make sure you incorporate criticism into what you do to ensure that you become a better person. People who listen to criticism improve. Everyone needs a coach sometimes.

17. Praise may make you feel good, but you need criticism to make yourself stronger and better.