Hater city

Welcome my friend, to hater city.

I lived in hater city when I was younger. I was through some real shit when it comes to haters. I have experienced them both online and offline.

Haters are these nasty people that want to bring you down. Without much reason, if any reason at all.

I find they hate because of jealousy or because they have a hard time themselves. The haters I have had in real life had their own personal problems. And then they hate to project their insecurities onto others.

So in this little newsletter, I will go over how to deal with these... annoying ass people. These haters. This is something I could have used back in the good ol' days.

I will go through the mental side of things when it comes to dealing with them. It's all about perspective, shifting your mindset. And a bit about how to keep your boundaries clear to keep them from hating.

Let's get started:

Shifting your mindset

So when you meet a hater, you don't want to let him control you.

See, I was trying to change myself, trying to people please to avoid haters. But this is when they win. When you begin to play their game, you can only lose. When you respond to them and let yourself get emotionally affected, they win.

So I already lost their game when I tried changing to make them like me.

This showed them that they had control over me, and they kept on hating. So you want to break out of their game. And you do this by shifting your mindset towards haters.

So here is a little analogy or something:

The leader and the people pleaser

Imagine the best leader you know. Think of the characteristics of this leader.

If you think of authentic, self-assertive and courageous, you are probably right. See, the best leaders aren't afraid of being themselves. Of standing up for themselves, and speaking their opinion. They do it despite of being hated, because they know that everyone has haters. Even though they have the best intentions and the best heart, they will have haters.

Good, that was the leader. Now I want you to imagine the most insecure guy you know.

If you think of shy, people pleasing and afraid, you are probably right. See, the most insecure guys are afraid of being themselves. They change their personality to fit in with people around them. Because they don't want to stand out. They are afraid of speaking up about their own opinions, because people might not agree. So they try to be liked by everyone. That is what people pleasers do. But despite their best efforts, they still have haters. And they try and try to please people, but still wonder why they have haters.

Now I have a question for you: Which one of these people do you want to be?

Do you want to be the leader who has haters, or the people pleaser who has haters? Being authentic, or being liked? Being self-assertive, or people pleasing? Being courageous, or being afraid and hiding?

It is your choice my friend ;)

This mindset shift has already meant a lot for me. Like everyone, literally everyone has haters. Then you chose what kind of person you want to be that has haters.

So you can't avoid haters, but you can still deal with them:

Playing dodgeball with your haters

Now I don't want you to literally go and play dodgeball with your haters. But I want you to do it internally.

Imagine you are playing against your haters. Your haters have all the balls they can throw at you. The balls they throw are their sarcastic and negative comments. Their balls are their hate.

So now they fire at you. What are you going to do?

1. Are you going to stand still and let them fire all the hate they want at you?

2. Are you going to dodge the hate?

3. Are you going to catch the hate and throw it back at them?

The first option is not optimal, because they are going to destroy you. You lose the game of dodgeball, and the game against your haters if you stand still. If you don't stand up for yourself.

I like the second option, dodging the hate.

They will run out of balls to throw at you, run out of hate. This entails not taking anything personally. You know that they hate because they are not better than you. Because they have personal problems themselves. It is their way of coping, and you don't let the hate affect you.

But you can also catch the hate, catch the balls in this dodgeball game.

And when you catch them, you don’t have to throw them back. You can simply lay the balls on the ground, leaving yourself unaffected by the hate. Because if you throw the hate back, you will start an argument with the haters, which won’t benefit you. You still may want to respond to the hate, IF you are not affected emotionally. Then you can respond with calmness, which means the haters don’t have control over you.

After an incident with haters, you can also cope by catching the hate, examining it.

You can do this in a journal where you write about the negative experience. This will help you get your thoughts out and makes it tangible. Then you can deal with it internally afterwards.

Some questions you can journal about:

What just happened? How do you feel? Why do you feel like that? What can you do to let go of the hate? Do you want to let some random hater affect how you feel? What are the consequences of caring about the hate?

Writing is underrated folks ;)

I promised to talk about boundaries, so here they are:

Getting your boundaries clear

So now, to avoid your haters stomping on you, you need to establish clear boundaries. So how do you do this? Well, I would go to a journal and write about these questions:

1. How do you want to get treated? Why?

2. How do you want to treat others? Why?

3. What happens when people cross my boundaries?

4. What behavior am I NOT okay being treated with?

5. Do I say “no” when I want to say “no”, and “yes” when I want to say “yes”?

When you answer these questions, you will have more clarity on your boundaries, and what you can tolerate and not tolerate.

Communicating your boundaries is all about the little word “no”. If you can say no when you really mean no, you are well on your way.

You know how I was a people pleaser, and had a hard time saying no. It did not end well, since I did not have any boundaries.

I can only advice you to go out there, and experiment. Treat it like a game: How can you express your boundaries respectfully? Try some stuff out, see what works ;)

Conclusion

So my friend, now you know everything to deal with those nasty haters. To sum everything up:

1. Realize that everyone has haters. Would you rather be authentic and have haters, or try to please everyone and have haters?

2. Play dodgeball with your haters. Dodge the nasty hate, and catch it without throwing hate back.

3. Examine the negative experience with the hater in a journal to deal with it.

4. Examine your boundaries to prevent the haters from taking control over you. Communicate your boundaries with the word “NO”.

So that is it bro. Hope you learned something ;)

I could have used this when I was a people pleaser myself, but yeah whatever, now I know. If you need help with low self-esteem, feel free to DM me on Twitter https://twitter.com/ash_rote. I will be so kind to offer you a free coaching call, don’t miss this crazy opportunity ;)

Well, if you don’t take it that is fine, but then be sure to have a breathtaking day bro!

- Ash