I recently had a friend reach out to me because she is dealing with haters. Now, this friend happens to be wildly successful in her career and in her family life. Her life is far from perfect, but she is good at what she does, and life has rewarded her as such. (She even lives in the big house on the hill.)<\/p>\n
I know \u201chater\u201d is a strong word, and I tried to come up with something nicer, but the truth is, I think they are just that: haters. Haters are what I call people who simply cannot be happy for another person\u2019s successes. And what I mean by success isn\u2019t just in your career; it\u2019s in life. You might be a successful artist, stay-at-home mom (of whom I\u2019m always a tad bit jealous), dancer, cook, listener, friend, athlete, writer, teacher, bookkeeper, custodian, or just simply a successful human being. But here\u2019s my truth: I\u2019ve never really understood haters. I think I may be abnormal, but I\u2019ve always surrounded myself with people who are better than I am. I wanted to teach next door to the very best teacher in the school. I want to run with people who are faster than me. I want to be mentored by others who are stronger, braver, and wildly more successful than me. I don\u2019t have feelings of inferiority around them. I want to be a part of their energy; their talents are a gift to me. But what I have found is that many people do not want to be around people who are better than they are. They actually feel threatened by others who are smarter, stronger, braver, or more talented. And for those of you that fall in this category \u2026 well, be curious and see if you might need to reconsider. Remember: you become the five people you spend the most time with.<\/p>\n
You see, all of us feel jealous of others at times. We constantly compare ourselves, our houses, our cars, our families, our paychecks, and sometimes we even act in unkind ways. But there is a difference between being a hater and being human. Haters are almost always unkind, and they will tap dance on any failure or weakness you might have. They sit on the sidelines (because you rarely find them in the arena playing the game), and they spew their venom in hopes of bringing you down so they can feel better about themselves.<\/p>\n
All of us will experience times in our lives where others will try to beat us down. People may say bad things about you or spread untruths. And let me tell you, the more you put yourself out there, the more you expose who you really are, the more successes you achieve\u2014the more those bloody thirsty haters will come after you. What I know for sure is that in one\u2019s quest to become successful and to have more, be more, enjoy more, there is always going to be opposition. Most of the time, people who feel the need to do this are stuck in the muck and mire of their own misery, so they will spew their venom on others in order to deflect from their own everyday struggles. Many times they are unhappy people and just by being in your energy field, they feel less, and their quick defense move is to strike out at you to make themselves feel better. They don\u2019t feel good about themselves and when someone else is happy and succeeding in life it makes them feel less; therefore, they feel the need to criticize in an effort to make themselves feel better\u2014which consequently, doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
But let me tell you, it can be exhausting dealing with haters. It\u2019s still hard to hear these things no matter how old you are and it hurts some, but you have to have some knowledge and some good tools up your sleeve, so you don\u2019t get stuck in others\u2019 negativity. And by God, don\u2019t let them define who you are at the core of your being.<\/p>\n
A few years ago I read The Four Agreements<\/u> by Don Miquel Ruiz. Agreement #2 stated, \u201cDon\u2019t Take Anything Personally.\u201d This seems like a simple concept, but it\u2019s very difficult to practice. Ruiz writes, \u201cNothing others do is because of you and that what others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won\u2019t be the victim of needless suffering.\u201d At about the same time, I was talking with my mentor and he said this, \u201cKim, what others think of you is none of your business.\u201d This falls right in line with what Ruiz is saying. It\u2019s a hard one, but I believe in trying to listen to it and be aware of it. Basically, others\u2019 opinion of you should not have power over you. Now some people\u2019s opinions do matter. For example, my close family members and friends, whom I respect and whom I know value and love me\u2014their opinions, advice, and insight can be valuable. (By the way, their names fit on a 1 inch by 1 inch piece of paper.) Sometimes you need another person\u2019s perspective in order to grow, as long as it is delivered in a loving way with good intentions. But, there will be a lot of people whose opinions you must tuck away in their proper place.<\/p>\n
Honestly, I have really struggled with this in my life. For whatever reason, in the past I\u2019ve allowed other people\u2019s negativity towards me determine how I feel about myself and at times in the past, I have let others decide my self-worth. But, I have grown and I\u2019m still growing, and I\u2019ve been learning that others\u2019 treatment of me is usually about them and has nothing to do with me. Actually I\u2019ve been studying about this for the past several years because I\u2019ve been so hurt by some people\u2019s judgments and accusations. At times, I\u2019ve really beat myself up over what others think, but I am now grateful for the experiences (for the most part \u2026 there are a few I think I could live without), and I believe some of my negative experiences with people have propelled me to reach for more and to grow\u2014although growing is sometimes painful at first. These growing pains and hurtful experiences have actually been a huge part of my learning and my successes, so in essence, as I look back at some of the hard times in my life where I was judged harshly, I can see that these experiences were of great value and aided in my learning and growth as a spiritual being. I am learning that there\u2019s always a bigger picture being painted even if I don\u2019t yet know the end result. Every experience counts and can be meaningful in shaping our lives in some way. I believe that every experience appears before us to teach us more about ourselves, and sometimes they are exactly what you needed to happen to get you to where you needed to go in the first place.<\/p>\n
At times when I\u2019ve put so much value into others\u2019 opinions, I found that I became an actor, willing to please, perform and perfect at the expense of losing my authentic self. Now don\u2019t get me wrong: I still want people to like me and admire me, and I have my periods of negativity too, but my self-worth is no longer on the table. I know that I\u2019m far more than an amazing or not-so-amazing presentation; a day when I\u2019m a great mom or a day when I\u2019ve failed at parenting; my salary, the home I live in and so on. I\u2019m SO much more than any of these things and you are too. Yes it will be difficult when things don\u2019t turn out the way I want them to, but my effort is about what I do, not who I am. Regardless of the outcome, at the end of the day I know that I\u2019ve dared greatly and that\u2019s aligned with my values and who I want to be. I want to be courageous and live a life that includes all of the above \u2026 disappointments and accomplishments, sadness and joy, successes and failures. What I\u2019m finally coming to understand at age 41 is that I\u2019m not interested in the haters anymore. They don\u2019t get to define what I know about who I am, my inner core and the soul of what makes me ME. At the end of the day, I get to chose who I am just like you do. You get to choose if you will allow the words and actions of others to affect you and your destiny. Doesn\u2019t it feel good to know you have a choice?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently had a friend reach out to me because she is dealing with haters. Now, this friend happens to be wildly successful in her career and in her family life. Her life is far from perfect, but she is good at what she does, and life has rewarded her as such. (She even lives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-joy-drop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47462,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16964\/revisions\/47462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}