2 Ways to Deal With People's Negative Opinions

Giving a deep sigh, he soliloquized.

"I will give it a try. I will!" He nodded to the neatly shaved beard, light skinned round man standing in front of his mirror. "Man! You know you can't be that disciplined with cash." He imagined how Tony's thick voice will thunder, when he breaks the news to him.

Bill had taken few weeks of thinking, to come to the conclusion that it was high time he stopped taking monthly allowance from his Dad. He was 21 and was ready to start taking responsibilities especially his finances. Bill can spend till his wallet screams for saving.

Will he be able to cope with his recent decision?

Set to establish his Clothing brand, his older siblings, Dan, Nick and Fred (friends) discouraged him, emphasizing his incompetence and lack of management skills. Yet, he was relentless in taking necessary actions to support his decision.

Six months later, Bill could could boldly author a book on the journey he took, responsibly, as he had to make a lot of sacrifices and adopt discipline in his spending. This marveled everyone plus, his business flourished beyond everyone's expectation.

Late icon and mentor, Myles Munroe said, "Forsaking dreams because others belittle them or say we are crazy for trying them, wastes potential." It's no doubt that when we set our minds on achieving a significant feat, which is often bigger than us, the variety of opinions we receive from people includes significant amount of "What? That's too big for you to achieve." Or "That's almost impossible. Just back out." A lot of "nays" that have the potency to make us abandon such dream often holler from the lips of those around us. We saw that, in the life of Bill. Almost everyone was of the opinion that he let go of his decision because they felt he was incompetent for that. Their opinion was valid due to the fact that Bill was extravagant with finances.

One thing I want you to learn from this is, people's opinion of you concerning chasing your dream might be valid because of some habit you've been putting up, which contradict the possibility of achieving such dream. But, that doesn't change your ability to change their narrative of you.

You will observe that after six months of Bills decision, his business flourished despite his extravagant spending nature. This shows that there was something behind the scene that Bill was doing that made him that successful after six month of starting his business. We can easily guess that Bill might have had reached business consultants, or been reading books on financial management or been connecting with business or financially disciplined oriented individuals, the guesses can go on and on but one thing we are sure of, he made an intentional decision with the right back up.

You can very well change people's narrative about you even all they can testify about you, is your inefficiencies especially in reaching your action goal. It's okay to have almost all hands "thumbs down" at you, when you have a vision, dream or goal. What's not okay, is leaving it because you feel no one supports you. Let's look at the causes and remedies of negative opinions of people about you.

Causes And Remedies

1. Your Habit.

People will label you inefficient because you often limit your potentials by contracting your ability to achieve greater feats with your actions. That, makes them define you based on what you've shown them you can, and cannot. They define you based on the exhibit your past, presents.

Remedy

The life of Bill in the above story made it clear that just because you were ineffective at some point, doesn't mean you won't be effective, if you make the decision to. People's narrative of you can change when they start seeing "the new you." You won't have to try to make them believe in your potentials, because the fruit will show off itself.

When next you have a dream, vision or goal, and you receive lots of nays from people because of your past habits, don't get yourself all worked up. Be like Bill; work on yourself behind the scene and let your achieved goal, dream or vision tell them about the unlimited potentials God has deposited in you. One thing you should have at heart is, people will always define you and limit your potentials base on your past abilities.

2. People's Perceptions.

People often effortlessly throw "nays" at you because they feel you can't achieve the mark you have set for yourself. This is not as a result of your habits. It can be as a result of your background, your environment, the resources you have at hand, and other limitations around you. This has often limited a lot of people's potentials. Hence, they abandon their visions and dreams not necessarily because of the limitations around them but because of the emphasis people put on those limitations through their opinion of ones vision.

Remedy

What will you do if people begin discouraging you and telling you how inefficient you are, to achieve the feat you are set to achieve? One thing I have often practised is getting God's validation and trusting his cheers first.

People have the ability to cheer you up today, and discourage you tomorrow. We saw this in the life of Jesus in the scene of the triumphant entry, (see Mathew 2:1-11) and when he was brought before Pilate (see Luke 23:18-25). Hence, when people remind you the walls of limitations that stand before you, disregard their opinion and trust in God's opinion of your potentials. God often uses different means to communicate to us, one of which is, he convinces us through our minds and when we commit ourselves to doing the needful, people's narrative of us will change in due time.

Having known the above remedies, it's also beneficial to commit to reminding oneself how people's negative opinion about you are less to God's and how you can commit to disregarding them through repeatedly affirming statements that will transform your mind.

Below is a positive statement to help you disregard negative opinions that can degrade your potentials.

Also read: 3 Epic Hacks To Being Productive In Life

Why You Need And How To Create Morning/Daily Affirmations.