Mission critical

Being critical will not change your reality. You will rarely (if ever) gain influence through criticism. In fact, you will almost always lose influence because of your critical spirit. You will not move up the ladder simply because you have an uncanny ability to point out small systematic flaws (flaws that I guarantee leadership are already well aware of). Vocal criticism might lead to changes in some small aspects of your life, but only for the short term. Long term change is the result of creative solutions, not your ability to pinpoint the problem.

Every chance to criticize is an opportunity to implement change. Create solutions for things that are within your reach to change. Fix things that other people might not even be aware are broken.

Most of the time I’m the chief critic.

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” Teddy Roosevelt