Acceptance may sound like any other English word when we read it somewhere. This word has lot of weight in itself. Do we have the nature of acceptance? Are we prone to accept negative feedback?

Always saying yes to whatever other person says is not exactly acceptance. At times you may think why I should accept whatever is happening. That’s right. You don’t need to accept each and everything around you and you can reject too. Acceptance or non-acceptance which ever be the case, how is your reaction towards the same. If there is a case of failure, then how it is accepted by a person and responded back really matters.

Acceptance of negative feedback itself is becoming tougher choice for many. In such scenario, acceptance of failure is like moving a mountain. These days the talk around the town is that only youngsters are not having acceptance towards life. I don’t feel the same. Many adult and old people also having tough time. Level of acceptance needed might vary based on age, that’s all. But age should never be used as a justification when it comes to personality related concerns.

Kids get everything from parents and they never learn how to react when a “No” comes their way. So called social status which parents want to maintain, forces them to provide even unwanted things to kids. Few parents try to live their own missed childhood via their kids. Some assume that making kids do their own work is a punishment. Many parents do not let kids work, thinking that it may be a double work for them if kids don’t do properly. Where do all these habits lead to in the future? Kids grow up not listening any negative comments at home; Kids grow up not knowing what “No” is.

Academics are important but it should not be for parent’s pride. Kid’s choices should be given preference. Comparison among kids brings major issues in child’s mental health. When a child who never heard any negative comments suddenly face the academic failure, doesn’t even know how to react. They try to defend their stand verbally. Few kids try to dig out parent’s mistakes and point finger at them to escape from the situation. There are kids who feel guilty about their failure and are afraid of facing the family, they might end up taking extreme step to end their life.

Being part of any sports in school, may help kids to handle their failures in the later stages of life. Only in sports,each and every time there will be a winner and a looser. Losing a game doesn’t mean losing life. Sports seeds this mantra indirectly into kids.

Fear of failure and rejection doesn’t stop with school days. They keep growing along. In college days, it is all about adulthood and handling of newer emotions. Youngsters get angry when a friend stops talking; They are unable to accept other group of students with different political views in college; They are unable to accept other group who supports different hero; They are unable to accept no in love. For all these, their solution is drugs and violence. With these anti-social behaviors, they are losing their fun filled college life. Just a thought of acceptance will bring a huge change in all these cases. Simple counseling and guidance from a proper person may do wonders. However, acceptance can’t be forced on anyone as it must be a self-decided one.

When it comes to work place, acceptance of negative feedback is a must. If one can’t accept negative feedback then stress is on them. They will start feeling low self-esteem. Few will get violent towards coworkers to hide their non-acceptance. All these things gradually pull-down their performance at work place. It doesn’t happen overnight. Few people even show all their anger at family or friends whom they love most. This action can’t be justified as love in this case. They are not able to accept negative comments and diverting that anger unnecessarily to another person. When this becomes a regular habit, big gap develops in relationship and causes irreparable damage. If we do root cause analysis, it all started when a person gave a negative comment at work place and unable to react to that in positive way.

Old age people too have acceptance issues. Co-living with adult kids may be a problem for few. Financial dependence may be a case for others. Frustration towards their past may lead to intolerance in their old age.

Whenever there is a failure or rejection then everyone becomes self-critic. Even though it is good to question yourself, it is equally important to think how to come out of that phase. Do not forget that you tried. You should appreciate that you tried. There may be few things which are outside of your control. You can’t continually blame yourself for such things.

Accepting failure is never an easy task. However, try to tell yourself that it’s not failure, it’s just a temporary setback and that you will bounce back. Try to be a constructive personality. Try to move forward again and not staying back for too long. Try not to wait for others approval for expressing your opinion. Always try to be realistic with your goal.

Have a good mental health.