5 Reasons To Smile When You Get A Negative Blog Comment

Most of what I write about on this blog comes directly from personal experience. When I look back at my posts, they read almost like an online diary. This particular post really hits home in that way.

When I first started writing for BitRebels, I admit I was very fearful of negative comments on my posts. Every morning when I woke up, before fixing coffee, before logging into Twitter, I would check my posts to see if anyone had left a negative comment the night before.

That was a long time ago, and I’m happy to say I’ve grown up a lot since then. I’ve grown a much thicker skin and have radically changed my viewpoint from the one I had many months ago.

Now when I get a negative comment, I smile and sometimes giggle to myself. If you feel paralyzed by the fear of negative comments, yet you don’t want to moderate the comments on your blog, then I hope this post helps you release some of that energy which will then allow you to move to a more positive place.

5 reasons to smile when you get a negative comment on your blog:

1. Smile because you’ve stopped worrying about what other people think. Each new blog post you write is like creating a work of art. Your readers do not know how much thought, time and love you’ve put into each post. Not until I started writing for this blog did the phrase “stay true to yourself” really make sense to me. As long as you are staying true to yourself and you can confidently stand behind the opinions you’ve written, then you can release yourself from needing the approval of others. Take that straight jacket off and breathe a little. Besides, if you always play it safe in your writing, your blog will be boring. It’s okay to cause an emotional response in your readers, even if they disagree.

2. Smile because you are not going to let the negative trolls rob you of your happiness and your positive energy in that moment. Don’t let the energy vampires bite you. Wow, this took me a long time to learn. I still struggle with this at times. I remember when I would contact @Minervity and say, “Look, someone left a negative comment, help! What do I do?” and he would always be so calm and patient about it, acting as if it was no big deal. I realized from those experiences that I cannot control what someone writes, but I can control how I react to it.

3. Smile because you can remove yourself personally from your post and view it as a free speech zone where people can express their own thoughts and opinions. Stay focused on what is important, which is consistently creating compelling posts that spark interest and views. Keep your focus on the readers. Appreciate everyone that reads your post and takes the time to comment, even if it is negative. After all, they’ve created content and possibly sparked a debate, which can only be good for you and your blog.

4. Smile because the negative comment that person left is not a reflection of you and what you’ve written. It is almost always a reflection of the person that wrote it. Smile because you are a person that is living life the to the fullest and being positive, not a person who is leaving nasty comments on someone’s blog and hiding behind keywords instead of using a real name. Be very grateful for that.

5. Smile because you are humble and honest; because you can keep it real with your readers. Smile because you can handle the criticism and learn from it. I reached a point when I knew I had to put my big girl pants on and deal with it, or else I’d never experience the personal development. If you just delete every negative comment, which is what I used to do, you lose the lesson and you show your readers that you don’t respect their opinions. Unless it is an extreme personal attack, leave the comment there. It’s all good.

The most popular posts are many times the ones that have the most negative comments. Thank those readers for making your post popular and for sharing their opinions.

Remember, “There just isn’t any pleasing some people. The trick is to stop trying.” – Joel Rosenberg, author