“I could never do what you do.”
We were sitting in a coffee shop next door to my office when my friend said those words to me.
My friend is brilliant, funny, and an exceptional writer, but when I asked him what is stopping him from launching his own blog (something that he has talked about doing for months), that was his response.
He had more to say too:
“People are so cruel and judgmental. I don’t think that I have what it takes to put my writing out there for the world to rip apart and judge. There are so many haters out there.”
Sadly, he’s absolutely right. There are so many haters out there.
Some of you already know this, but it took me three long years to find the guts to publish my first ever blog post here on this site.
The reason for the ridiculously long delay, you might be wondering?
Fear of dealing with criticism from the haters.
Yep, that’s it. That fear almost stopped me from ever hitting “Publish” on my very first blog post.
Almost.
It took me a while to completely overcome this fear, but now with almost a year of blogging under my belt, I can say with 100% confidence that haters do not need to be feared.
They do need to be dealt with, though.
The problem is that when it comes to dealing with haters, most people give the same tired advice that you have probably heard before:
Ignore them.
Get a thicker skin.
Fight fire with fire.
There are definitely much better ways to silence the haters, so without further ado, let’s get on with the business of zipping their lips once and for all.
