“When one of the doctors criticizes（批评）me, I get defensive. I feel like a child again, being scolded, and I want to explain that I'm not wrong,” says Viola, a nurse. This is a common reaction（反应）to criticism, but not a good one. There are better ways of dealing with criticism.
Try to be objective（客观的）. When Sol was criticized by his new employer for not having made a sale, Sol's reaction was to feel sorry for himself. “I had put everything I had into making that sale,” Sol says. “And I felt that I had failed as a person. I had to learn through experience not to react like that to each failure.”
Take time to cool down. Rather than react at once to criticism, take some time to think over what was said. Your first question should be whether the criticism is fair from the other person's position. The problem may be a simple misunderstanding of what you did or your reasons for doing it.
Take positive（积极的）action. After you cool down, consider what you can do about the situation. The best answer may be “nothing”. “I finally realized that my boss was having personal problems and taking them out on me because I was there,” says Sheila. “His criticisms didn't really have anything to do with my work, so nothing I said or did was going to change them.” In Sheila's case, the best way to deal with it was to leave her job. However, that's an extreme（极端的）reaction.
You may simply explain your opinion without expecting an in-depth(深入的) discussion. You may even decide that the battle isn't worth fighting this time. The key, in any case, is to have a reasonable plan.
According to the writer, you should take time to think about criticism because____.（ ）
文章第三段最后一句表明，你受批评，可能只是由于他人误解了你所做的事或你这么做的理由(people may have a mistaken idea of what you did)。
