How to deal with negativity and put downs from others

​People in your personal and professional circles may be quite negative when you move into a new venture. There are some people that don’t like change.  Unfortunately, not everyone will be happy for you if you succeed.  If you are perceived as a tall poppy in your field, you will quickly be cut down to size.  The golden rule is that it is acceptable to distance yourself from others if they are insulting or offending you, even if they are family members. 
​
Remember that there are some people that will always have something to say, and it will always be negative in nature.  If you are working hard to establish a new profile, they will be quick to call you a workaholic.  Yet if you sit in bed watching Netflix all day, you will be accused of being lazy and not contributing to society.  If you care about your appearance, you are vain but if you do not, you have let yourself go.  And so on. Ignore these people as you will never be able to win, whatever you do. 

The key is to keep your circle of trusted associates very exclusive (which may well prove a moveable feast because friends come and go all the time).  Don’t worry if people accuse you of being a snob for being selective about who you mix with.  Filter any negative energy from outside that zone.  In some cases, you may not be able to eliminate people who are putting you down completely because they may be family members.  I am hardly the Emily Post of etiquette, but in my view, if someone is really upsetting you on purpose, it is fine to distance yourself from them.  Remember the saying (which also seems to be a popular tattoo these days), “blood makes you related, loyalty makes you family”.

If people are talking about you behind your back, that too can generate negative energy.  However, this is difficult to prove (ie both that it generates negative energy in the atmosphere and that they are saying things about you) as you must have evidence or it will all be in your imagination.  If people are talking about you behind your back then they are not using their time productively which could be used to develop their garden.  But if this is actually happening, be flattered. At least people find you interesting enough to talk about!

Don’t be surprised if you have difficulty relating to people who have the luxury of not working.  You have to be thick-skinned to survive in the working world, and we don’t all have the luxury of being kept women.  A lot of people don’t understand how rewarding we find our work.

Finally, some people ask too many personal questions and ought to learn how to mind their own business (if they have one).