‘That’s a ridiculous idea, it will never work. Why don’t you just get a job?’
This is said all too much by mediocre minds, sometimes even your friends and the people around you will say things like this when you tell them about your plans for greatness. Why? Well there could be any number of reasons why they don’t support you, but what can you do about it?
If you find that whenever you tell your friends about your plan for greatness and how you’re going to achieve lots in your own life, and they respond with only negative opinions, there may be something wrong here. Why are they giving negative opinions? I think it comes down to two possible options:
1) They have been brainwashed into thinking there is only ‘one right way of doing things’ and your actions are a movement against that belief
OR
2) They sense that what you’re doing might be working and because they either don’t understand it or don’t have the skills, energy, motivation needed to do it themselves, they aim to bring you down to make themselves feel more comfortable.
I’m going to explore both options, and then explain what you should do when met with this kind of negative reaction! Because after all, you don’t want this negative reaction do you? Wouldn’t you rather your friends and the people you tell about this exciting adventure you’re going on met you with praise and encouragement? Of course you would.
You see, I’m assuming that by you being here, and reading this you’re one of the people aiming for greatness in life and won’t settle for anything less. Right? If not, maybe you’re in the wrong place. So the chances are that somewhere along the line you’ve met someone who’s said something that could bring you down.
Something like ‘Why don’t you just get a normal 9-5 job’ if you’re into online business or ‘Just come out for a drink.. Smoke.. Take drugs.. Everyone does it!’ If you’re going down the healthy road in life.
Why?
Let’s take a look at my first answer to this:
1) They have been brainwashed into thinking there’s only one correct path for success
Work. Work work and more work, until you can barely move and then maybe if you’re very lucky, in 50 years time you’ll have JUST about enough money saved to enjoy a little retirement and watch TV with your partner until you both die. What? IS that really success? Of course not.
You want to enjoy a rich passionate and experience filled life NOW! As you’re reading this you want to be planning your next travel trip, saving for your new house, writing a new book etc! You don’t want to go to a boring office job and sit in a box for 50 years, do you?
But it seems that much of society is brainwashed into thinking that is the case. Why? Probably years of being told the same thing from a young age.
- Go to school
- Get good grades
- Get into college
- Get more good grades
- Get into University and get into lots of debt
- Pass uni with good grades
- Hopefully land a good ‘salary’ job (which you may or may not enjoy)
- Save money for reitrement
- Work hard 5 days a week for 40 years
- Die
That’s the average ‘life plan’ for success drilled into us from a young age. People, friends and parents alike will parrot the same things to other people in their life; ‘If you want more money, work harder and spend less’ or ‘Get good grades and then you’ll be happy, have a good job, have enough money’.
But is that the case? No. There are lots of people in 2014 leaving university with degrees and not being able to find work. There are lots of accountants in the world. Lots of IT technicians. How many people are there with a passion for Lucid Dreaming and enough technical know-how to create a website and market their free content? Much less.
In this day and age, if you try to compete with others you’ll end up getting hurt. There are simply too many people, all with pretty much the same ideas and the same mentality about success in life. Unemployment rates skyrocket, why? Because of a number of reasons but I think it’s mainly because people are just not using their brains. They’re not ‘creating’.
Starting their own businesses. Why not? There is nothing done today that will not be done MANY TIMES BETTER in the future, so why not come up with those game changing ideas? Facebook was invented by a student as a way to keep i contact with his friends. Now it’s one of the biggest and most valuable companies in the world, and almost EVERY business these days uses it!
This is going to easily become a post about my views on how to become successful and that’s not really what I wanted it to be so let’s get back on topic. You’ll encounter people in your life who will tell you that your idea won’t work because it doesn’t fit their ‘blueprint for success’ which is: Get job > Work Hard for someone else. don’t listen to them.
The second option that someone will tell you you’re going to fail is..
2) They can’t achieve success themselves and therefore seek to bring others down
This has many psychological motives behind it, but without getting too much into those, just think of it like this; When someone can’t achieve success they want to make themselves feel better. Sometimes instead of just getting up after their failure and trying again they instead look for justification.
They say things like ‘no wonder I couldn’t make my business work, look at the state of the economy’
Or
‘It’s just not meant to be; online business is a waste of time’
To make themselves feel better about giving up. They then continue this when they see someone else (even one of their friends) starting to try and succeed or even actually succeeding and they’ll try to put them down, so that they don’t feel as bad for quitting.
So what do you do?
What to do when no-one supports you?!
Look at why they’re not supporting you. Listen to what they’re saying and ONLY take it on board if they have a clear and justified reason. If they’re telling you to give up on your business of selling paving slabs to local hooligans, because it’s illegal and is not a viable long term business plan, listen to them because it’s true and they’re HELPING you.
If on the other hand, they’re telling you to give up on your dream of starting a tour operator because they don’t think it will work and they think you’ll lose money, then talk to them. Ask them why they think this, and then tell them about your research and your business plan (You do have a business plan, right?).
Often times they will still remain stubborn in their belief that you’ll fail. They won’t support you, and this is because they simply can’t change their mind. Their beliefs have been hard wired into them for years, just like everyone’s have. It took me months of affirmations and all sorts of mind tricks to change my beliefs from my childhood into something more productive and desirable for my life, and anyone could do the same.
So here’s what you can do if no one supports you:
- Explain your plan and why it will work
- Ask them about their dreams and why they’ve given up
- Tell them to try again
- Remember to get up more times than you fall down
- If they’re giving good justified helpful advice, listen to it
- If they’re not, ignore them
- Go for a relaxing swim
- Keep being awesome
- Keep crushing it and winning
- Wait 5 years
- Laugh at them from your giant ridiculously expensive boat while sipping on your freshly made cocktail
But joking aside, recognize if they’re trying to help you by advising you against something they KNOW doesn’t work, or whether they’re just discouraging you because they don’t know how to blog and are still working at some crappy coffee shop for minimum wage.
There’s a distinct difference in the type of ‘support’ or criticism people will give you. Some will be mildly neutral and just won’t have an opinion other than ‘If it works, it works’ and that’s fine too, although doesn’t really serve much purpose and doesn’t help anyone.
Support is not really needed for your journey but will certainly help you along the way. It’s always nice to hear someone say something nice about your life and the way you’re handling things in it.
Final thoughts
So what should you do if no one supports you? Just keep on keeping on but at the same time, look at your results, your achievements and really think about if you’re doing the right thing with your business. Are you doing the right thing in terms of what you’re focusing your attention on and spending your time on?
If you did enjoy this article I’d very much like it if you could hit the share button and if you’re feeling particularly awesome, tell your friends to share it too, because this post going viral would actually make me very happy indeed. Here’s to your success.