Take failure and criticism in stride

Today I feel that I am on the brink of breaking my bad character trait, the inability to accept failure or criticism.  I've really been doing a lot of soul searching and character building in the past few weeks, and I am starting to see the results a lot sooner than I expected.  

I can tell that I am almost there is that in many situations I have been able to consciously catch myself starting to raise my shields, or starting to worry and actively drain the negative energy.  Today I didn't do a perfect job on something and someone pointed out my mistakes.  My first reaction was to pary and turn the tables, but I realized what was happening and I accepted the criticism as advice and a way to speed up my path to become better.

I'm not quite as far along on taking failure in stride, but my thought patterns have already been corrected, it's just the emotional reaction is still there.  When I think of something that I need to do that I might fail I get worried and avoid it, but in my head I am convinced that it is necessary to do anyway even if there is a high chance of failure, because I can learn more from failure than from success, and failure is a healthy part of life.  A life without failure is a life without enough attempts and without enough risk - pretty boring and probably not that successful.  I'm not going to look for failure, but if I can get my emotions to be in line with my thoughts and values, and then get that into action, I believe life will be a lot more fulfilling.