Not everybody will like you. And you know what? That’s ok.

Not everybody will talk nicely about you, you know. You will face some negative opinions about yourself, regardless of the amount of value you provide or how nice you behave to others. And that is a thing you must cope with, because sooner or later it will rush into your life. The sooner you have a successful and visible career the sooner you’ll have to face more and more powerful negations to your activity, in addition if you have a temporary setback in your life or career , that is also up for criticism, same case if you try 
something risky, adventurous or different.
In itself, this manifestation of resistance to what you do is not that big or important as people tend to make it. To some degree it is a very natural and almost necessary thing. But there is an inner feeling of security and comfort that is being challenged by every negative opinion, and that is creating in turn a flow of negative emotions.  Let’s see how you can deal with that:


Accept Them

The first and the most difficult thing to do about that, is to accept the simple fact that they can exist. It’s difficult because you link success to popularity, and popularity means recognition from an increasing number of people. Every negative opinion will feel like a decrease in popularity and you’ll be incline to take it as a lack of success. In fact, negative opinions about you have nothing to do with your success, because you should have your own definition about being successful.

Don’t Engage In Negative Discussions

The first impulse when facing a negative opinion about yourself is to challenge it. You will try to challenge the value of truth in that opinion. You will try to convince the other part that he’s wrong. Well, don’t do this. If there is a lesson to be learned from that, just learn it, but don’t engage in negative controversy. It will just add up to the power of that opinion.

Don’t Excuse Yourself

Repair. If there’s something you did wrong, just go there and fix it. If there is something to be announced about that, do a small announcement after you fixed it, express your true feelings about that, and let it go. Don’t try to excuse yourself without repairing, just to polish your public image. Every PR company will rush you to “go out” with a nice press release in which you acknowledge and excuse, but that will also empower the negative opinion, not you.

Focus On What You Want

It’s easy to get caught in a defense spiral when facing negative opinions. You follow the defensive impulse and tend to build scaffolds for surpassing that opinion. Well,it’s not about them, it’s about you. If you keep your focus on that opinion, you won’t have any focus left for what you do best. And sooner or later you’ll become a match for that opinion, because you stopped doing what you’re good at.

Forgive

Sometimes you’ll enter in some kind of relationships with people talking bad about you. If you’re a popular guy and receive a lot of media attention you’ll soon have your own “clients”. They will just talk bad about you as their day to day job. This is what they’re hired to do, in fact. You don’t have any other alternative than to forgive them.