Top 3 Rules For Dealing With Naysayers Who Discourage Your Success
On your path to success, you will inevitably encounter those negative Ned’s and Nelly’s who will freely offer their opinion as to why you will not be successful. Sadly, these naysayers may even be your friends and relatives. These defeatist types will discourage your success and, if not dealt with effectively, can prevent you from achieving all that you are capable of achieving.
Here’s my Top 3 Rules For Dealing With Naysayers Who Discourage Your Success:
1) Assess Them
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
Often the naysayers simply don’t have all the facts. They haven’t done your due-diligence and put in the time and effort it takes to succeed in your position.
You have done all that, right? Good, you have the upper-hand then and should have supreme confidence in your pursuit to succeed at whatever it is your pursuing.
When someone is discouraging your goal, there’s a couple important questions you should ask yourself of them:
- Is the person successful in the goal that I’m striving to achieve?
- Does this person have real experience and expertise in what he/she is advising me on?
If the answers to these two telling questions are “No” then it would most likely be beneficial to not heed their advice. For instance, if your buddy Larry, who’s a plumber (not that there’s anything wrong with that) is discouraging your goal of being the best salesperson at your company well then;
- What is Larry’s track record in sales? Has he achieved the type of sales success I’m striving to achieve?
- Does Larry have real experience in my role and/or expertise in my profession/business?
If the answers are “No” then Larry is most likely not your best source of guidance, support and inspiration. Instead, ignore the naysayers like Larry and seek the advice of those who are already successful in what your trying to achieve.
2) Protect Your Blocks
If people are trying to bring you down, it only means that you are above them.
Remember when you were a preschooler.. or maybe you have one of those little people now? Either way, you or yours probably used building blocks among other tots in some sort of “play group”. If so, then this should sound familiar..
Building blocks.. cool.. what can I build? I know.. a skyscraper.. big and tall and cool.. the biggest best skyscraper in the city!
And so it begins.. you start building.. focused on the goal.. 1 block, 2 blocks, 20, 40.. getting higher.. this is going to be AWESOME! Then bratty Bobby (every play group has one) comes and knocks over your blocks.. dreams demolished.. Game Over.
Naysayer’s are just like that. They can’t have you building something brilliant while their blocks are a big disorganized pile of poo. They’ll look to knock down your blocks and level the playing field as it were.
Don’t let that happen.. Protect Your Blocks! Be selective and share your goals only with those you know to be encouraging and supportive. Share your goals with everyone with ears (or a Facebook account) and you set yourself up for discouragement as you dramatically increase your exposure to the naysayers who would relish the opportunity to knock over your blocks.
3) Don’t Engage
Some people are like clouds. When they disappear, it’s a brighter day.
One of the worst things you can do is actively engage a naysayer. As I referenced in my previous rule, you invite this when you carelessly share your goals with everybody.
When you actively engage with a naysayer you actively engage in unproductive behavior. Given a naysayer’s lack of belief, you may feel the overwhelming urge to set the record straight and make your case as to why you will indeed succeed. Don’t bother.. you’ll end up wasting an awful lot of time and risk shaking your confidence in the process.
Naysayers can always find reasons why your goals won’t work. What you tell (and believe) yourself is all that really matters. You don’t need a naysayers belief or commitment to succeed, you only need your own. So avoid engaging the naysayers, stay focused and keep moving forward towards your goal.
There will always be naysayers that discourage and won’t join you on your path to success. That’s okay.. they need not come along. You’re going anyway.
Make a Great Day!
Steve 🙂
Pinnacle Performance Champions 