Humans logo

7 Things You Should Know About Your Haters

What You Should Know About Your Haters

By Linda WilliamsPublished 4 years ago 5 min read
1
Photo by Matheus Bertelli from Pexels

Unfortunately, you probably know someone who’s a hater in your life. Someone who’s negative, who’s critical, who judges you harshly for no reason. Someone who seems angry at you without a logical cause, or who roots for you to fail. He or she most likely gets in your way or at least tries to, and it would certainly be so much easier without their contempt and scorn.

Hate is almost impossible to avoid, so we shouldn’t waste our time trying to. There’s always going to be people out there who can’t deal with who we are or how we succeed. But dealing with haters isn’t as easy as just accepting that they’re always going to be there. Having some knowledge about why haters are the way they are can be helpful when faced with one. The following are things you should know about your haters.

1. Jealousy and resentment are big factors

Success and haters go hand in hand due to jealousy and resentment. The more successful you are, the more hate you’ll likely get. In that way, haters can actually be a sign that you’re doing well because they’re jealous of your success. While haters act superior, or like they’re better than you, deep down they know they aren’t. If they could do it better, they would have done it already –they’re going on maybes and you’re the one doing things and making it happen. They think you are where you are based on luck instead of willpower and effort, so they waste time resenting your success as opposed to trying to emulate it. Haters hate because they’re jealous and they want to be you.

2. They want to bring you down in order to make themselves feel better

We can think of haters in the same way we think of schoolyard bullies, who we’re often told pick on others because they feel bad about themselves. Everyone handles their insecurities differently. For people who weren’t taught how to deal with them in a healthy way, it might be easier for them to hate you. Their hateful ways won’t actually help them feel better. In fact, they’ll have more difficulties if they’re wasting their time hating. Being a hater is not constructive, and will only make them feel worse in the end.

3. Haters aren’t self-aware and probably don’t know why they’re so angry

The thing about hate is that it blinds people so that the only thing they can see in front of them is that one negative emotion. It makes people behave in angry, irrational ways without shedding light on the reasons behind it. In other words, they lack self-awareness, which Courtney Ackerman describes as “the ability to see yourself clearly and objectively through reflection and introspection” on the Positive Psychology website. Haters are so focused on you that they don’t stop to consider themselves as they should.

4. Haters have a fixed mindset

A fixed mindset is one that leads people to believe that skills and abilities are predetermined, that they can’t be flexible, and that the world is either black or white as opposed to including shades of gray. It’s part of the theory of mindset that founder Dr. Carol Dweck writes about in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. When we apply it to haters, we see that they think there’s only a certain amount of success in the entire world and that you have taken part of their share. They don’t realize there are opportunities for them in other areas to be achieved in other ways.

5. They aren’t happy

Haters generally aren’t happy people. If they were, they wouldn’t waste time dwelling on a negative feeling like hate. When people are unhappy, they try to fill the void with other things, and sadly, hate is one of those things. Even worse, the problem is cyclic; when you replace emptiness with hate, it only leads to more unhappiness.

6. They don’t really know you

Haters only know enough about you to decide you’re a threat or that they would somehow benefit from your failure. They don’t know what makes you unique and special. They don’t know how hard you work or what you’ve been through. They aren’t your true friends, which is why you should be careful around them and about internalizing what they say.

7. Fear is a factor

Haters commonly go after people who you might have assumed think they’d get along with. People who seem similar to them or who have common characteristics. But instead of coexisting as friends, the hater chooses to go after them with negativity and act superior to them. This can be explained with something called projection. Psychology Today cites psychologist Dana Harron in an article, who explains it by saying “the things people hate about others are the things that they fear within themselves.” So for example, when a hater is talking badly about how you’re “loud and obnoxious,” it might be that they’re self-conscious about how outspoken they are. They’re afraid of being rejected for their own qualities so they reject you instead.

People will form opinions about you no matter what. And some of those people’s opinions will be hateful and unkind; that’s just how the world is. But in dealing with haters, try to remember that it’s about them and their own issues. You aren’t under any obligation to make them like you. And more importantly, if they don’t like you, you certainly don’t have to let it upset you.

Citations

Abrams, Allison. “The Psychology of Hate.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 9 Mar. 2017, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-compassion/201703/the-psychology-hate.

Michael, Jody. “Council Post: How To Grow Beyond A Fixed Mindset.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 6 Dec. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/12/06/how-to-grow-beyond-a-fixed-mindset/#52fd2cd57f79.

“What Is Self-Awareness and Why Is It Important? [ 5 Ways to Increase It].” PositivePsychology.com, 18 Mar. 2020, positivepsychology.com/self-awareness-matters-how-you-can-be-more-self-aware/.

humanity
1

About the Creator

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.