Some forms of criticism arrive at the perfect moment, with the perfect combination of words, and they finally click; something within us changes.
We finally understand something we've been unknowingly struggling with for so long, and we can (finally) let it go.
It's a mix of the messenger's sensitivity and tact in saying something like that, and our own willingness to listen at that given moment. When those stars align, we are ready to make a change.
They say rejection is God's protection; to me, it isn't necessary to be that idealistic. We can definitely take rejection as a way to learn something new and improve ourselves as people, and that attitude might actually lead us somewhere.
There are things about our personalities that we don't notice until somebody else points them out. We tend to think everything we do is normal, but it might be useful to hear that we might have a tendency to be too inflexible, or that we succumb under stress.
What I'm trying to say is that we can't improve those things if we never know about them, and that in corporate it's very difficult to receive earnest feedback that can actually boost our careers, so when it's there, we should appreciate it.
That is not to say we should accept everything anybody throws our way; some perceptions aren't true, of course. But we have to be really honest with ourselves and leave our egos aside to listen to the criticism we need to hear.
Looking back, a lot of good things started happening in my life when I took every rejection and every criticism and started working on the aspects everybody kept pointing out. And thanks to that, I'm much better now! So I hope this story motivates anyone who's going through something like this.