5 Steps to Know If a Troll or Hater is Right

Have you ever had someone hate on you or troll your posts and make mean comments?

In my last blog, I told you about the six levels of shining. Now, let me tell you…as soon as you start shining, many people will see you in a positive light and compliment you. It will feel amazing and to them you say, “Thank you!” Then there is a chance that others will be jealous and say mean things about you to your face, online or to others. I’ve felt it and it sucks how it can cause you to doubt yourself and want to fly under the radar.

Don’t hide away! Don’t take their words to heart! Instead I’ve got some tips for you.

Here are the five steps you can take in those moments in order to be able to deal with haters. 

Step 1: Ask yourself, “Does this person's opinion matter to me?”

This is especially true in cases online when you don't even know them. They think they know you based on what you've put online or how they see you from afar, but they don't. That person doesn't have any importance in your life. ​

What if it is someone whose opinion does matter, like a loved one, a friend, or a co-worker?
If the person's opinion matters because you care about them deeply or because you have an obligation to them like a boss, then we're going to move on to step two. If it doesn't matter, then you can just let it go and jump straight to step four.

Step 2: Open your ears and protect your heart

The words for this Step are what was said to me by the Ultrasound Tech when I was doing genetic testing with my first baby. The ultrasound was to see if our baby would be normal and would not have any health problems. 

The person doing the ultrasound couldn't tell me what the answer was, it had to go through the doctor. Before I left to hear the results she said to me, “When you go and see the doctor, open your ears, but close your heart.” That basically meant: take the facts in and don't let it impact you emotionally or personally. 

If a boss or family member says something negative to you at that moment, take the info into your mind and close off your heart so it doesn't deeply impact you. I know that it’s not always easy to deal with it in the moment and know exactly what to say in response to negative or hurtful comments, so let’s move to Step 3.

Rather than it taking you to a place of lack of worth and limiting beliefs. We need to get to that place of, “Okay, this is not going to affect me long term and affect me personally.” To do that, let's go to the next step.

Step 3: Be curious and look for fact

Let’s say in a meeting at work with a potential buyer, you were so excited about a new product and its launch. But afterwards your boss says, “You talked a lot, you were very loud and you were so excited.” ​

So you close off your heart as in Step 2 and you ask yourself these three questions:

1. What was the result of the action? 
2. What was the implication of the action? 
3. What was the negative side of the action?

Here are the specific questions from my example and some possible answers:

1. What was the result of talking a lot? I may have cut off my boss and the potential buyer. 
2. What was the implication of being loud? I might have seemed like I was yelling causing the buyer to pull back and be quiet.
3. What was the negative side of being so excited? I could be seen as salesy.

Being excited, talking passionately and talking loudly can be a good thing - you’ve seen this with memorable speakers like Tony Robbins, and Martin Luther King. But after being curious and looking for facts you can see how you came across and then decide if you want to change anything.

Now you're in a place of learning, which is great.  Now that you have the info, you can get into action by asking yourself, “What do I want to do now?” 

In this situation, you might practice your pitch before a meeting, you may pause in the meeting to check in with the potential buyer, and you could have a code signal with your boss if you do get too excited or loud. 

What happens if you can’t find any facts?

• So you’ve gone through the questions and you can’t see how what they said is true. 
• and you’ve checked in with friends who will call you out (this is also in Step 4) and they agree there was no truth to a negative comment. 

In some cases, you can ask the person. Like in my example you could ask your boss to explain the impact they saw in talking a lot and being excited.

This happened in my example from a past blog when I was talking with this woman at my church retreat who said I was too much. I did some soul searching, reflected and asked myself the questions about if I was too much, I even asked someone else who was at the retreat and we couldn’t find truth in her comments, so I had to go to her.

I let her know her comments upset me and I wanted to talk about it. She agreed and I asked, “Can you explain to me how I'm too? Can you share what I did that made you not like it?” ​

It's funny because she didn’t have any examples of what the negative was. In the end, she said, “It’s actually not you. It's me. I'm realizing I don't like myself.” This broke my heart and made me realize where her comments were really coming from.

This completely changed things. You see, sometimes there isn’t truth to people’s negativity. That’s why a lot of times we need to just ignore it and protect our heart.

Thankfully, I was able to have that conversation. But you can’t always have that conversation, especially if it's someone online or maybe you don’t want to because it’s a family member or someone who you just can’t win with. I have had clients with narcissists in their lives and you should just not engage.

But if you're curious, you might get the understanding out of it. So in that hypothetical work situation that I gave, if you’re talking a lot and someone else didn't get to talk, then maybe it's more so that they wanted to shine and they didn't get to.

On the flip side, you could have been exactly what the potential buyer wanted and now they’re your client because they loved you. But your boss was jealous of the attention you were getting. Knowing that helps you to gauge for next time and adapt. 

If someone tells me the negative reason or the negative results, obviously, I'm going to want to change my actions. Not necessarily change myself but change my actions so that I can have a better result and have a better connection. 

Be curious like a five-year-old would be curious, with your heart protected and your ears open. 

Step 4: Get support from those you trust

This is the step you jump to if you've got a troll on social media, and you're feeling like, “Why did they say that mean thing to me? Oh, I'm never going to do a video again because they said this about me.”

Then, you get support from those you trust. You go to the friends and you say, “Friend, this is what was said. This is what happened. This is how I'm feeling.” 

That's what I have had to do like in the example above and when someone was slandering me. I had to go to my friends and ask, “Am I really like that? Are they correct?” They responded, “Absolutely not. Not at all.” They were ready to go to bat for me on this.

When you go to someone you trust, they might tell you, “Well, actually, yeah. I can see how that's the case and maybe do this next time.” ​

​Just like I’d prefer to have someone tell me I have broccoli in my teeth, I’d like feedback on where I don’t realize I am doing something with bad results. I trust them, so I can be vulnerable and ask for their opinion without being in shame or guilt.

Three  benefits are:

1. It’s not true and they tell you that and then they support you through any feelings you have about it.
2. It’s not true because the person is misunderstanding you or the situation, but you talk it through so you can adapt in future situations.
3. It is true and they lighten the impact and make it less hurtful by saying something like, “Well, I can see where they're coming from.” They can then talk you through it and help you to understand it and feel better. 

Step 5: Continue to shine and sparkle

This is the most important step. Continue to shine and sparkle. Why? The world needs more SHINE. Yes, you may repel some people, but they're not YOUR people. 

Remember when you shine a new sparkle, you're going to be able to bring in and attract:

• the people who will love you most
• the people who want to be with you
• the people who want to be in your life 
• the people who have similar values and belief

But if you are going to dull your sparkle, if you're going to hide it away, you're missing out. You're missing out on so many rewards. 

You have an amazing opportunity to increase your ability to shine if…

• You're struggling to shine
• You’re in a low level of shining when you looked at the different levels of shining in my last blog 
• You are shining and you want to amp it up to one of the higher levels
• You have big dreams, big goals, big things you want to accomplish and you know you need to shine a little bit more, 
• You used to shine a lot, but someone's taken away your sparkle. 
• You want to shine, but situations have dulled it. (This happened to me with Covid and my Dad dying - my sparkle was dulled)

If any of these are true for you or you just feel like you want to SHINE more, then I do encourage you to do the Dynamic You Program. You can do the program and get the book. What I have seen is that those who take the program with me and the other ladies always get a better result. If you can only get the book then go for it. I've made that an option for those of you who financially need another option.

To wrap this up, don't ever let anyone dull your sparkle and if someone does then go through the 5 Steps. If you believe that you are being a good person and you're being naturally yourself, and you're not harming anyone, then you are wonderful the way you are. There is no need for you to change who you are. You may just want to change some of your actions. 

But don't let someone else's negativity, someone else's jealousy, or someone else's comparison to you be the reason why you're not allowed to shine and sparkle. You were destined to do life in your own way. We're all shining and sparkling in our own ways. Maybe some of us more than others. That's okay. But don't ever let anyone dull your sparkle, go through the five steps and get yourself back to where you need to be. 

Read other blogs here: 

1. The Five Reasons Why You Need Motivation
2. 4 Steps to Stop Judging Yourself
   
3. 3 Reasons Why You Can’t Find Answers to Your Problems