Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

First, try to convince yourself that nobody is against you and that if they come out as too harsh, it is not intentionally. Twice so if you are dealing with people from cultures where communication is more direct or confrontation (not in the bad sense) is normal.

Then, if you are an employee, it helps to think that you already have been paid for the work being criticized. Sounds unrelated to the original problem, but for me it helps to dismiss a potential source of stress. Also related to the fact that you are not your work and it is not good to identify with it.

Also, think of the times when you might have come out as too abrasive to a colleague. Think how you would like you comments not to have been taken so harshly. Do the same with other's comments.

Two points: is your goal to be perfect (i.e., make no mistakes), or is your goal to improve the product? In the later case, constructive criticism is only moving you closer to that end goal, and can be welcomed happily.

Second point, do you respect the person giving your work criticism, and do you accept that it is useful for the product? If yes, then great, why feel bad if the goal was to improve the product, and their criticism will only make your work better. If no, then this can be a difficult situation, and I personally have been here before. I try to see things from their perspective, ask questions, etc., but there are definitely times when you will fundamentally disagree with the utility of the criticism, and this can indeed be a hard spot.

This all said, the manner of delivery makes a big difference. "Do better" is not useful feedback because it is not actionable. If you are getting this kind of feedback, consider finding a new job / manager. Feedback that is well thought out and actionable (e.g. "this can be refactored like so", or "this function needs another test case") is more than likely coming from a perspective that has seen many things go wrong, has an intuition about what can go wrong, and can be a learning experience for you. Sometimes, the problem cannot be articulated so clearly, in which case your manager should be careful to say so and they will have to put in some thought themselves into the problem and how to find a solution. If they are not then they are only doing half of their job.

I understand that, just sharing what I see most commonly.

On the "anti-fragile" aspect of things, I studied Architecture in college and grad school (buildings, not software/system architecture) before transitioning to programming and the entire education model is built around dozens of critiques over the course of the semester. We don't have final presentations, they're Juries. Each semester culminated in working your ass off for weeks, pulling all nighters for days on end, then presenting whatever drawings and models you had to a panel of jurors who were assuredly going to rip you a new one. They weren't intentionally being mean, but you're a student, and there's plenty to pick apart as there's never enough time to think and do everything. Regardless of how good my projects were, after those final juries were done, I always felt like I'd gotten a heavy dose of criticism.

Going through that process over and over again has been incredibly helpful in my professional life, even though most of the criticism I receive is rarely structured like those juries. The first thing I learned is that it's rarely useful to try and refute or respond to the criticism directly in the moment. If that's your instinct, then chances are you aren't fully thinking through the criticism and responding from a more emotional state, which is not good. The key is to try and actually listen (rather than "shutting down"), remember the key points to process later, and to let the person offering the criticism know that you've acknowledged it.

Second is to realize that nothing is perfect. There is always room for improvement, things that you couldn't foresee, and things you simply didn't have time for. Obviously, the bigger those things are the more concerned you should be, but as your work becomes more and more refined, the criticisms become about smaller and smaller aspects of whatever you've done. The goal is not to get zero criticisms of your work, but to have the criticism that you do receive be about less and less important elements.

Third is that someone will always have something to say. Interpret that in a number of ways. If you're getting a code review, you're soliciting someone's opinion or your development process is dictating it. People will come up with criticism because that's what's being asked of them, and even if it's "perfect", responding with nothing makes it seem like they're not doing what they should. People like to offer criticism because it makes them feel important; they see a "flaw" you didn't, even if they don't really understand the totality of what you did. And while its disappointing to say, some people will criticize you for personal reasons, be it against you directly or because they think they stand to gain something by doing it.

Ultimately, you have to decide what is worth listening to and what is not. If nothing is ever worth listening to, then that's something that's likely more on you than the criticism you're receiving. It's also very tempting to discount criticism from certain sources because of past issues with that source. Process each criticism from them in the same way, regardless of the past, because you never know when they actually might have something worth listening to.

You can introduce them to meditation from early age on, they just usually lack the patience to do it for longer or intense, when they are small.

I myself started meditating on my own, when I was 11/12 so that is definitely an age, when you can do it serious.

My own kids (Don't push them obviously. Rather give them a chance, to explore mindfulness and consciousness with you. I can also recommend Tai Chi/Qui Gong as an more active path towards it.