Haters gonna hate

Part 2 of 4: creating confidence

This was the hardest lesson I learned on my journey to discovering confidence.

People who make fun of you, dislike you, or are mean to you, will do that to everyone. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.

In part 1 of my column on Creating Confidence, I wrote about how smiling can make you appear and feel more confident immediately.

The hardest part is, however, to keep smiling when people try to dim your light.

There are people who prey on the vulnerability of others. Their only criterion for targets are the people willing to stand out. The haters, or bullies, go after people who are just starting to learn how to stand out.

They look enviously at those who are brave enough to step into the spot light of life. They attempt to pull the aspiring stars back to the shadows in which they reside – the dark places of self-pity and blame. 

More advanced haters will go after those dancing in the centre of the spotlight. They are skilled at identifying the passions of others because, they believe, someone at the highest point has the farthest to fall.

They stand in the shadows with their stage hook and wait for the moment to reach forward and grab their target in the hopes of pulling them out of the light.

Why do haters do it?  Because they lack the emotional intelligence. To these people, everyone must lose because they felt they have lost in some form.

They also do it for attention. The haters of the world are looking for an emotional response from you – to see that they have affected you in some way.

Confidence means standing on the stage and owning your spotlight, even when the haters try to pull you off.

A message for the stars who have haters lurking in the shadows:

• Understand that you control their power over you.
• You have the choice to not respond in anger or out-bursts.
• You have the power to be un-affected by their choice of negativity.
• You can choose to shine on and keep dancing in the spotlight.

More importantly, you can choose to understand that, at some point, those haters likely experienced something that made them act as they do. Perhaps it was a broken family, hard childhood, or current stress.

Choose to send them thoughts of healing instead of the fuel they are looking for to justify their pain.

A message for the haters:

Stop. Before you make that snide remark; before you write that rude comment; before you go out of your way to make someone feel bad: Stop.

Ask yourself why you are doing this. Why are you focusing so much attention on strangers? Why are you choosing to allow negative thoughts to fill your day?

Spend time in self reflection and stop putting up a barrier to the love in the world.

Haters gonna hate

To be confident is to understand that some people will not like it. Own your light and your dance.

This is your stage, and no one can take that from you unless you let them.

Keep smiling and keep dancing.   

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.