Mental strength isn't a nice-to-have in today's world. It's a must-have in the face of adversity and distraction. 

A key opportunity lies in everyday scenarios that often go wrong, eroding your mental strength versus building it up. I'm talking about how well — or how poorly — you handle criticism.

Don't underestimate the negative impact that landing in the "poorly" column here can have on your life and career. There are all too many opportunities for criticism to throw us into a downward spiral that can be tough to pull out of.

"Bad" events, emotions, information, and feedback are more influential than "good" ones, research shows. Events involving negative emotions, for example, are four times more likely to be remembered than those involving positive emotions.

But criticism isn't what makes us weaker. Avoiding it is.

So if you want to become mentally stronger — a topic I cover in depth in my recent book, "The Mentally Strong Leader" — you have to learn to handle criticism well. Here are four ways to do just that.

1. Decide who gets to criticize you

The truth is, not everyone should get a seat at the table.

Your boss, your boss's boss, and your life partner should probably all get a chance to offer you feedback and expect that you'll thoughtfully consider it. But your second cousin who loves to monologue at you during family gatherings about how you should do your job, despite having no context or experience in your field? Not so much. 

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The point is, you don't have to default to accepting feedback from anyone and everyone who wants to share it.

Decide who it makes sense to truly listen to and take seriously.

2. Manage your first reaction

It's not about minimizing your emotions, it's about managing them.

Of course, that can be hard, because criticism can sting. In fact, neuroscience research shows that the brain registers social rejection in the same region it does physical pain. That's why criticism can feel like a gut punch at times. 

But you can work to regulate your emotions. For example, say you receive some criticism that doesn't feel great. In response, you can feel your thoughts starting to race and your emotions starting to surge.

In that moment, get out of your head and into your body.

Take a breath and focus on that breath. Name what you're feeling so that the emotions lose some of their hold over you.

Then you can listen and ask questions to fully understand the feedback. 

You can't change the words spoken to you, but you can control what you choose to do with them. You don't have to act on your first thought as that criticism rolls over you. You can pick your second or third.

Mentally strong people manage their emotions so they can respond with intention.

3. Reframe criticism

It's helpful to look at criticism through a lens of empowerment versus one of deflation. 

When theater critic Albert Williams articulated his philosophy around why he does what he does, he explained that it's about creating better art with an eye toward the future. It's not to be cruel, or to save audiences from spending hard-earned money on a bad show.

Try to reframe feedback guided by the belief that your critic's intent is, similarly, to help you achieve an improved outcome or a better version of you. 

Here are two other reframes. As you receive and process criticism, remind yourself:

• It's better to be judged than ignored. Sure, maybe some of the judgment being passed on you doesn't feel fair. But judgment comes from having something worth passing judgment on — otherwise you'd be ignored.
• The idea is to seek improvement, not approval. Not everyone has to agree with you, or to think everything you do is flawless. If the person offering feedback truly wants you to get better, and you do too, you can work toward that goal together.

4. Keep what's useful and leave the rest

Picture a strainer for a moment. Now imagine criticism you receive as flowing through that strainer.

You don't have to ingest and retain every piece of that criticism. You can listen, sift through it all, let the parts that aren't helpful pass right through, and focus on the remaining, helpful "nuggets."

Say someone gives you feedback on a presentation. Perhaps, as you sift through the criticism, you find that, while it's all well-intended, some of it isn't relevant or helpful because it lacks understanding of the context that informed the conclusions and strategies you described.

But there are a few nuggets to keep, like how you can be more concise or use more visually engaging slides in your presentation. 

Use your metaphorical strainer to help you filter out what's irrelevant and focus on what will make you better.

Scott Mautz is a popular speaker, trainer, and LinkedIn Learning instructor. He's a former senior executive of Procter & Gamble, where he ran several of the company's largest multi-billion-dollar businesses. He is the author of "The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors." Follow him on LinkedIn.

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