Let Haters Fuel Your Fire
I was watching an interview with Michael Phelps at the Olympic trials when the interviewer played him a clip of a female Australian swimmer talking trash about the American swimmers. The interviewer asked Michael what he thought about it. He said he would play the clip repeatedly to push him to train harder and prove that the hater was wrong.
Many people say you should ignore haters, but Michael has a better idea. Let their crazy talk fuel you to do better. Take that negativity and make it into a positive for yourself. Don’t ever believe what they are saying about you because the chances are the haters are the ones who have issues but use it to imagine the possibilities you are capable of achieving.
I have been very blessed that I have not had many haters, but one did help me to be a better person. As a writer, we receive many rejections and it never becomes easier, so I have always appreciated the editors who have been kind. One editor started that way and then snapped. Here is the general way the rejection read.
Dear Mrs. Bonn,
I enjoyed reading your article and there were quite a few redeeming features. (I was thinking, “Oh, how kind.”) (Then everything changed.) Before you begin to be published, you must pay your dues and work night and day on your writing. It’s not until you toil and sweat that you are entitled to the rewards. (it continued in this fashion for another paragraph.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Tobin (not her name)
I decided that from that moment on if I could help anyone learn something I knew how to do I would do it with kindness.
The next time someone says something hateful you can recover quickly and use the hatefulness for something positive.
