How to neutralize the naysayers in your life
Haters gonna hate.
As Raph Waldo Emmerson said "Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there will always be someone to tell you that you are wrong."
But this can be SO painful can't it? Especially when we're starting out on a new project, flexing the fingers and toes of a fresh idea or generating big, hairy, scary goals. Naysayers can crush our spirit, belittle our dreams and make us second guess ourselves. They can be friends, colleagues, virtual pals on Facebook, family members even.
If we're truly going to step into our passions, drive towards our dreams and smash our goals it takes more than courage - it needs support. Support from people who get us. Support from those around us. Support from our tribe. So here are four steps to help you neutralize the naysayers in your life who are distracting you from your dreams, goals and plans
#1 Protect your fragile goals.
Your fledgeling goals are just hatching and they're still fragile and not strong enough to take a bashing. Until you have concrete plans in place and have some success under your belts sometimes it's easier to keep them from the naysayers and change the subject. Let's face it, people love to talk about themselves right? To deflect the conversation away from you and towards THEM...
"What are you planning right now?"
"Oh you know, more of the same... what exciting things are YOU working on?
You get the idea...
#2 Dissect their experience.
Naysayers are often full of great advice about how you SHOULD do things (I personally think the word should needs to be removed from our conversations altogether... both with others and ourselves... but that's for another post!) but what experience is that opinion rooted in? If they're knowledgeable and already successfully where you want to be then, by all means, use any fact-based advice to check-step your plans. But if it's conjecture and assumption, negativity or scaremongering (or protecting their turf) you can safely ignore it and move on.
#3 Where is their advice coming from really?
People may be negative about your dreams and plans because your enthusiasm and dedication throw into the spotlight their own LACK of goals. That makes them uncomfortable so, quite naturally and often unconsciously, they project that negativity away from themselves and onto you as a means of self-protection. This is negativity coming from a place of jealousy or self-judgement and you can rest assured it is less about YOU and more about THEM.
#4 The ultimate choice and the next step.
Sometimes all you can do with a really toxic relationship is distance yourself from that person or remove them from your life altogether (if you can). Or if not, don't discuss your plans with them. Instead surround yourself with amazing, positive, supportive, challenging and inspiring people that really GET you and want to see you succeed. Share your dreams and goals with them instead. I'll leave the final words to John Eliot who said "History shows us that the people who end up changing the world... are always nuts until they are right, and then they are geniuses."
Let's be geniuses, shall we?