Bullies? Haters? Whatever you want to call them, they’re the same. As the old saying goes, “Haters Gonna hate.” And they do, with great intensity.

But why?

Here are your answers:

Anyone who does good for themselves is bound to have a pack of haters sniffing and yapping at their heels. There’s a reason that people have made the word itself an acronym.

1. H- Having
2. A- Anger
3. T- Toward
4. E- Everyone
5. R- Reaching
6. S- Success

Haters hate because of their own insecurities. They’re the type of people who resent everyone who dares to do better than them. And they’re everywhere! You see them at school, in the workplace, in the neighborhood, and even in the family!

Haters are people who go out of their way to make you feel bad about yourself. They badmouth you, discourage you, give scathing reviews, undermine your achievements, and sabotage you to slow down or stop your progress.

Here are things haters will say when they find out you’ve succeeded at something:

1. “Oh, but you’ll never do that.”
2. “Oh, but you can’t.”
3. “She recorded a CD? Well, she didn’t do much! Anybody can do that!”
4. “She’s not so hot!”
5. “She thinks she’s so (pretty, so much smarter than everyone else, etc.).

When your hater sees you happy and doing good for yourself, it makes her feel worthless and she’ll stop at nothing to block any success you aim for. Understand that these people may or may not want the success for themselves, the power (and pleasure) is in the taking of yours.

Haters hate because they feel inadequate. Therefore, they must make you feel inadequate. Do you see where this is going?

Haters will come at you with a barrage of insults and name-calling. They may talk trash behind your back and try to kill your relationships. And you don’t necessarily have to be successful to have haters.

In fact, you might not even know why they’re hating on you. But understand that if you know you haven’t provoked them in any way, it’s a good bet that it all comes from jealousy! There’s something you have that they don’t and they don’t think they can get. Or, there’s something you’re getting to do that they can’t do.

Realize that your success highlights and reminds them of their failures. And the only thing haters can do to feel good about themselves is either insult and ridicule you, or avoid you altogether. And in doing so, they get to forget about their unfulfilled dreams.

They’re only raking you through the mud because the mere sight of you reminds them of what they could never achieve.

It only goes to show that there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s not your fault that these people are either too scared or too lazy to put in the work required to live the life they want to live.

I want you to realize that the hatred itself is an admission of your awesomeness, your worthiness, and your value. It is the confession of your accomplishments. It is also the unspoken admission of their fear, insecurity, and inferiority; and a testament to their cowardice, laziness, and lack of confidence!

Because if the haters had any confidence in themselves, you wouldn’t trigger so much hatred in them, you would only trigger motivation. You would inspire them to get off their butts and work to reach their goals and dreams.

Instead of hating you, they would look up to you and want you to mentor them!

This is why you should never allow them to make you feel bad about yourself, or guilty for your successes and for having something they don’t. Instead, you should use their hate as your motivation to achieve greater success. Hate should be used as fuel! There’s a reason why it’s often said that “Haters make you famous!”

Success produces enemies, always! Accept it. Better yet, embrace it and love it