Follow these simple guidelines to deal with criticism better:

1. Stop Your First Reaction: If your first reaction is to become defensive, take a minute before reacting at all. Take a deep breath, and give it a little thought. Let a critical statement settle in before replying. Walk away from someone instead of saying something that you will regret later. That cooling off time allows you to give it a little more thought beyond your initial reaction. 

2. Turn a Negative Into a Positive: Find the positive in it. Sure, it may be rude and mean, but in most criticism, you can find a nugget of gold: honest feedback and a suggestion for improvement. For example, this criticism: “You write about the same things over and over and your posts are boring and stale.” Can be read: “I need to increase the variety of my posts and find new ways of looking at old things.” See it as an opportunity to improve — and without that constant improvement. Improvement is a good thing.

3. Thank the Critic Even if someone is harsh and rude, thank them: Your attitude of gratitude might probably catch them off-guard. And even if the critic doesn’t take your “thank you” in a good way, it’s still good to do — for yourself. 

4. Learn from the Criticism: After seeing criticism in a positive light, and thanking the critic, don’t just move on and go back to business as usual. Actually try to improve. See if there’s something you can change to make yourself better. And then make that change. Actually strive to do better.

5. Acknowledge where they're right: Once you are ready to verbally respond to criticism, start by acknowledging what part of their criticisms are right.Hearing this will make them feel better and let them know that you have really thought about what they said.You can simply say, “You are right.” Then move on. You don’t need to go into a lot of detail about why your critic is right. Just acknowledging that you agree with their perspective will help the critic to feel like his or her point has been heard.

6. Ask for their advice:  If they did not already recommend a better way of going about the problem, ask them how they would do things differently. If they did already give some advice, you can still ask for more, however. Getting advice gives you a way to learn, but it also makes the person who gave you the advice feel better.