If you’re really doing work that matters, it’s likely that your work has been criticized or challenged. This is because you’ve decided to take a stand or adopt a position that is off-putting to others.

meaningful_workAlternatively, if your goal is to be universally liked, your work isn’t nearly as meaningful, because you want to please the masses by hiding and avoiding criticism. Hiding and avoiding of course, miss the point.

Hence the paradox: You don’t want to be criticized and you do want to matter.

The solution? Create work that gets criticized and engage your powers of discernment to distinguish between useful and constructive criticism (beneficial), and the stuff worth ignoring and dismissing (everything else).