Defensive Listening

If I had to choose one type of listening that I need to improve on it is defensive listening.  Defensive listening can be seen as receiving criticism, but taking it only as a negative and not as improvement.  At first I never really thought I included myself in this factor of listening, but I have come to realize that I have become naive to it until now.  When I think about past conversations I've had with family, friends, and my girlfriend there were times that I definitely was guilty of defensive listening.  When I got criticized about my flaws I would avoid the subject and walk away from the problem.  It ended up causing a bigger problem with people I care about since it would end up dragging on much longer than it needed to.  It would also be my tendency to get defensive about what was being said by yelling back at them and calling them out on flaws they had to take the problem off of me.  To help fix this problem I need to learn to control my emotions.  It's not an easy fix since it takes time to break a habit that's been happening for years.  Yet it's the best way to go about it since I want to help improve my relationships with the people I hold close to me, but also to help improve myself.