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Within the first couple of months of my job, my mentor/boss deleted all my work and started over what I had been working on. My work wasn’t even wrong. I had done things very inefficiently, and it was hard to read as an outsider. He cleaned up my work, made it 10 times more readable, and he showed me a way of doing it that was much much easier. I was genuinely pretty mad at first, but I’ve never made that mistake again. On top of that, my boss praises me all the time telling me I’m doing a good job. He wasn’t trying to say “hey buddy you’re stupid I’m deleting your work” it was moreso just I should’ve never done what I did regardless of if it worked or not. I had a hard time taking criticism in other roles before this one, but I realized that valid criticism is precisely what makes you a better engineer. So if you ignore it or feel angry about it, it’s just slowing your growth and potential.
Also props to you for realizing you struggle with criticism. Most people who struggle with criticism don’t recognize that.
It's not about you. It's your performance. Consider feedback as information coming into your control center about what you're doing. If the criticism is valid and reasonable then integrate it into your work. If it's not valid, like when someone is just being a dick, then it's even more so not about you and so shrug it off best you can.
You can't grow if you don't know.
Not being able to take criticism can also be a trauma response. Seek a qualified therapist to help you with the underlying issue(s) which may be holding you back. :)
You need to learn to separate yourself from your work. You are not your job, you are not your work
Remember that it's not about being right; it's about arriving at the best solution. Maybe target shooting is a good analogy? You're not always going to hit the bullseye first try. If someone else comes by and tells you you're a few inches off to the left, and it's true, then incorporate the feedback, make the adjustment, and hit your mark.
Of course, there's a line between constructive criticism and discouragement or simply being mean. E.g. "Hey you're off to the left" vs "You suck at aiming". On engineering problems with quantitative metrics, it's often a pretty obvious distinction; when the criticism is about behavior, psychology, or attitude, the line can be blurrier. Ultimately, criticism is what makes you better. I believe you should be hungry for it.
It’s just a part of the job, I regularly accept valid criticism and it doesn’t go down badly in Aerospace.
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