How To Criticize Without Being A Douchebag

Any shrink worth their weight will tell you that criticism is toxic in relationships. It’s not just bad for the person on the receiving end — it’s bad for you because over time, your emotional memory gets strengthened and more adept at criticizing (which research shows will make you less happy — not more), while your brain becomes accustomed to hunting for evidence that the things you expect to be wrong are wrong. 

I can’t teach you how to stop criticizing in a blog post. But I can teach you how to do it in a way that’ll be less hurtful to each of you and less damaging to your relationship.   

Most of my clients wish that things didn’t piss them off. They want to be that cool girl who doesn’t get bent out of shape over dumb things like household chores not getting done, or people who are chronically late — so they keep quiet until things build up and they snap.

The snap usually comes out in a “you” statement. 

“You 1[always, never] [insert bad thing here]. You’re so 2[insert character statement here]”    

Why’s that toxic?

  1. It includes a word that overgeneralizes the person’s behavior (see below for an incomplete list), and it’s objectively inaccurate (which opens this up to a debate) because humans are not consistently anything. We’re painfully inconsistent. 
  2. It includes a statement about their character (see incomplete list of words/phrases that describe character below) which is not only soul crushing (regardless of whether the person on the receiving end of it realizes it), it’s unlikely to change, because character speaks to who we are as people. We can change behaviors. We can’t change who we are. 

How to make it better:

“I asked you to [insert thing here] and you said you’d do it last night. When can I expect it to be done?”  

I essentially want you to take your gripe and flip it into what you want instead of expressing what you don’t want. Keep the blame out of it. 

5 ways to complain without being a douchebag:

  1. Don’t use words that over-generalize. See the list below (1). 
  2. Behavior. Not Character. Speak about the behavior you want to change. Don’t categorize, evaluate or analyze the behavior as being part of an overarching trait that’s indicative of who they are as a person. See the list below (2). 
  3. Complain without blame. Make a request instead of bitching about what they didn’t do. 
  4. “I” instead of “You.” Start the conversation with an “I” statement. It minimizes the likelihood that you’ll sound critical. Criticism almost always provokes defensiveness — which isn’t to say that complaining won’t — it’s just less likely.
  5. Keep it tight. Limit the scope of the conversation to this specific day. Don’t kitchen sink fight, which is when you start off complaining about 1 thing and devolve into vomiting all the stuff you’ve held in for the last year/decade. 

 

1Words that over generalize – Don’t Use:
  • Constant(ly) 
  • Always 
  • Never
  • Nobody
  • Everybody
  • Only
  • Rarely

 

2Words that describe Character – Don’t Use:
  • Lazy
  • Selfish
  • Cheap
  • Thoughtless
  • Unreliable
  • Full of shit
  • Liar
  • Disrespectful
  • Inconsistent
  • Inconsiderate
  • Arrogant
  • Unkind
  • Mean