Want to be a Translator? Don’t Let Others Get You Down
Negativity is everywhere these days.
You can’t go online without running across someone that is trying to bring somebody else down.
This is especially true when the person that they’re trying to bring down is trying to improve their own life.
You know the crabs in the bucket story, right?
It’s also been called “crab mentality.”
Basically it goes like this.
If you put a crab in a bucket, it will try to escape by crawling up the side.
However, if you put two crabs in a bucket, while one crab is trying to escape by crawling up the side, the other crab will pull down the first crab, preventing it from escaping.
People are like these crabs.
If they see you trying to “escape” and make a better life for yourself by accomplishing some goal, they’ll often do everything they can to pull you down back into their own bucket.
These are the “haters” and if at anytime you decide to put yourself out there and express an opinion on something (even if it’s not necessarily controversial), they’ll come out and attack you.
My Own Haters
Most of you probably don’t know that before I had ran TranslationRules.com, I ran another translation site that was specific to Spanish.
As part of the promotion for that site, I decided to make a YouTube video about the software I was using to create the site. At the time it was called SiteBuilder (I have since switched to
BlueHost and WordPress, in case you’re interested) and I made a video explaining how the software helped me get new clients.
While most people who watched the video had positive things to say about it, I did get my share of hate mail.
“So Site Builder gives regular hippy stoners that can’t figure out HTML and basic internet marketing the to chance to be real Certified Translators, that would normally rely on good old fashioned honest reputation and industry word of mouth, the chance to drive traffic to their translation website and gain clients thanks to a massive marketing machine. Cool man! I just hope you don’t land a contract to translate the tech documents of the hydro electric dam that is just up the valley from me.”
So not only was this guy trashing on my website, but he decides who I am and what I’m capable of just because of how I look.
I’ve been accused of being a lot of things, but “hippy stoner” hasn’t been one of those. I felt more sad than angry at this post because these types of people are always trying to cut others down.
The funny thing was, though, that I received another comment from the same person not three minutes later. Check it out:
“Hey, I was a bit harsh to you in the post LOL, I’m just in a cynical mood. I’ve had a look at your site and you do have some good content. Keep up the good work and best of luck.”
So he never looked at my site when he wrote the first comment, and then admitted that the site was helpful.
So what makes people act this way? Why are there people that insist on trying to make others feel inadequate or incompetent. Their criticism is never constructive and their negativity is unbelievable.
So what’s my point here?
Well, as a translator, you will encounter these types of people throughout your career.
It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to become a translator, want to start your own translation company, or branching out to work on other language careers in addition to your translation one.
People will still find a way to criticize you for even trying to become better.
As if that was such a bad thing, right?
Shouldn’t everyone be trying to become a little better every day?
Some people don’t like that, though.
How to Avoid the Hate
OK, so if you know that you are going to receive at least some pushback on your desires to become a language professional, it’s important to prepare yourself so that you can deal with those haters and not let them derail your path to success.
So what can you do?
Understand Where Hate Comes From
The truth is that most people hate on other people because they are disappointed with their own lives.
Think about it.
Most normal people realize that things don’t directly affect us as much as some people like to think they do.
And if someone
you didn’t even know wanted to try their hand at something new, you most likely wouldn’t even care because you’d realize that in the end, their decision wouldn’t affect you.
People that aren’t normal don’t realize this.
They for some reason fixate on those things that
don’t even matter in the end. Things that happen to people
they don’t even know.
And if those people don’t even know you, and what you’re doing isn’t even affecting them, then you should know that they are only doing it because they see some fault in their own life they are trying to cover up by attacking you.
Understand Your Why
Another thing you can do to help you deal with any haters in your life that don’t like your decision to become a translator is to have a deep understanding of why you’re making the decision you’re making.
Your why.
It doesn’t even matter what your why is.
Your reasons are not my reasons, which are not your parents’ reasons, which are not your friends’ reasons.
You are making your own decision because you have your own reasons for doing so, whatever they might be.
And that should be enough.
The great thing about life is that everyone has their own.
We don’t have to give it away to anyone.
The decisions you make are the decisions you make for yourself, not for anyone else. Haters are free to make their own decisions for their own life.
Understand Where to Find Support
When you make a decision that others oppose, it can be hard to not feel like everyone is against you.
Believe it, though, that there are other people that support you and will encourage you.
Sometimes it just takes time to find them.
This happens all the time in politics.
Someone supports a candidate that the rest of that person’s family and friend circle doesn’t support and this, depending on how far people take it, can lead to isolation and loneliness.
But there are always others that believe in the same things you do.
They just might not be the people closest to you.
In that case, you need to be willing to get up and go find these people.
This can be through online mediums like Twitter or Facebook, or it can be in real life through meet-ups and gatherings.
However you do it, remember that it is much easier to face the critics when you have people backing you up and supporting you.
So find those people. Lean on them and let them lean on you.
