Hater is a commonly used word nowadays. Personally, I think that it is actually overused. People want to label everyone who disagrees with them as a “hater”. What does that word mean? I found two definitions in the dictionary: a formal one and an informal one.

Formal: A person who dislikes a specified person or thing e.g. “a man hater“.

Informal: negative or critical person e.g. “she found it difficult to cope with haters“.

In this post, I will be referring to the latter meaning. How do you handle negative or critical people is key to your growth, and key to living a life of balance. There are eight simple keys to handling haters. Here are the first three.

1.Keep things in perspective: First of all, keep things in perspective. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a hater. They may just disagree with your position. Secondly, there is a difference between people disagreeing with your Facebook posts and people being after your very career or life. Think Colin Kaepernick, Martin Luther King, or Jesus. A lot of people scream “hater” just because a stranger disagreed with them online or in real life. It is not that deep. Thirdly, not everyone will like you, your product, or your message. In fact, according to Tim Ferris about 10% of people will not be into you. It is just the math. It is very important to keep things in perspective in order to choose the right response.

2. Focus on your “lovers”: of course, by lovers I mean it in the sense of being opposite to “haters”. People spend too much mental and emotional energy on haters. They either try to defend themselves, justify their position, or “throw shade” at said haters. Big mistake. It doesn’t matter who doesn’t “get you“. It only really matters who does. Those that love you? Focus on them. Love them back. Support them. Do not take that love for granted. Concentrating too much energy on haters takes your focus away from people that you should be serving and “loving“ right back.

3. Listen: What is being said? Who is seeing it? Let me give you a somewhat facetious example: if one person says you are a cat you can ignore it. If two people see that you are a cat, well, they could be wrong. If 50 people say that you are a cats just get down on all fours, and say meow! If a person that you know and trust and has your best interest at heart says you are a cat give it some thought-and then start meowing! Not every negative thing that you hear is false. Some of it, you have to take us feedback for your own personal growth.

Check back next week for the concluding part of this post!