How To Use Negativity From Others To EMPOWER You

Today’s a big day; I have my first internet hater! Wooooo!

A kid from Poland with a ‘World of Warcraft’ gaming channel commented on one of my YouTube videos, apparently he didn’t seem to resonate with my message…

Not quite sure how he saw it given that it should only be appearing for people who are searching personal development gurus and topics, because he certainly didn’t seem to be the right sort of mindset for that. But then again who am I to judge!

So before Stuart’s video, I wanted to share with you a couple of realizations about this experience, and how we can CHOOSE how negativity affects us – whether positively or negatively.

Firstly, how do you frame negativity in a way that keeps your mindset focused?
Secondly, a favorite of Justin Woolf’s (Mentor within the SFM community); “How can I use this as an opportunity to grow?”
And finally, how to use that negativity to actually INCREASE your effectiveness towards what you want to achieve.

It’s all a case of how we position it in our minds, and with the right positioning we can choose to use external negativity to our advantage.

Framing

So in the example of the kid above, I could either choose to frame that negative comment as “a sign that this person doesn’t like me, and that means others might not like me, and that means I’m not likable, and therefore I should stop putting myself out there because I’m not worthy”…

Or I can choose to frame it as “In business if you’re getting a strong message out there you will always attract people who oppose that message, and this is a sign that I’m being true to what I believe in my message. It also means that I’m attracting attention as my reach increases, which is a very positive sign that my business is improving and I’m getting in front of more people, many of which will be like-minded, entrepreneurial, and will really resonate with the idea of creating a better life for themselves”…

I choose the latter.

How can I use this?

Carrying on with the example, I can choose to use this experience to make me more aware of the topic of negativity, more aware of how we can manage it and use it to our advantage, and then finally choose to write this email and share it with you which should hopefully empower us both.

Therefore this experience has a positive impact for me, you and others, because of a choice that I’ve made in how I receive the experience itself.

Increasing effectiveness

So to wrap the last two points up, the way that we frame an experience and the way we use that experience, has an impact on 2 things: Our mindset in this moment, and our belief of who we are moving forwards.

Our mindset in this moment directly impacts how effective and happy we are right now, and our belief of who we are moving forwards obviously affects how effective we are able to be in the future. If we believe that we’re someone who is hurt by the opinions of others, or influenced to stay in our shells because we’re scared of what others think… Then we’re not going to be able to overcome these challenges and grow past our current capabilities.

However if we believe that we’re someone who isn’t affected by the negative opinions of others, and if we believe that we’re adaptive enough to not take it personally, our belief lets us use future experiences like this to our advantage.

Stuart’s video

Stuart really wraps up this whole concept and much more, in the video below. If the message above makes sense, this video will definitely add to that tenfold. Enjoy: