tip of the week: seek constructive criticism

Today is Thursday, which means tip of the week time. Today's tip is a little more comical, but is still intended to be a serious tip. I hope you can take something from it.

This tip came to mind while I was watching "American Idol" last night. My wife and I still love watching this show, especially in the beginning when they have so many untalented crazy people. I find people singing badly compelling in a train wreck sort of way...you can't turn away no matter how bad it is.

I believe there are two types of bad singers on "American Idol":

1. People who know they're bad but just want to get on TV. Their phoniness is so blatantly obvious. They're annoying to watch.

2. People who seriously think they're legitimately good singers. They really believe they have the talent to be the next American Idol, but really have no shot. And they respond to this one of two ways:

• They accept the criticism with no issue (though they may be a little sad)
• They flip out and accuse the judges of an inability to judge. They think the judges are wrong. They typically reference how everyone else tells them how good they are.

I would like to focus on the second reaction by the second type of bad singer to make my point here. For example, last night there was a girl freaking out. She said the judges didn't like her because of her weight. She claimed to be better than most of the other competitors there. She is so serious it's ridiculous...ly funny to me and just incredibly obnoxious. She thought she was so good even though it was so obvious she wasn't good at all. This brought up a thought to me: who are the people telling her she's good? Why would people lie to her so she could embarrass herself on national TV in front of millions of people.

So, here's my tip, which covers more than this situation. Whenever you're thinking of taking a big step in a direction you want to move in, seek constructive criticism. You may not like to hear some negative things, but it's better to hear them from people you know and appreciate than from random people in front of millions. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from chasing his/her dreams, I'm just trying to encourage people to make sure they're not wasting time and energy and emotions.