The exclamation in the title – Reee-jected! – was what my friends and I would yell at each other when one of us, while defending a shot on the basketball court, got “all ball” and denied the shot. When you’re a mediocre basketball player of modest height, the feeling of rejecting a shot borders on euphoria. But real rejection – the kind that all of us have experienced – is no fun at all. But if we get our mind right, we can overcome and prosper in the face of rejection.
Everyone gets rejected. It’s amazing to read rejection letters like the one above. It reminds you that rejection is part of the journey. My favorite line from the rejection letter to U2? “We wish you luck with your future career”. Thanks!
Rejection is temporary. If you’re not familiar with Martin Seligman’s work around Learned Helplessness, I recommend familiarizing yourself with it (as well as his associated work around Learned Optimism). In Learned Helplessness, people are subject to viewing problems through the following lenses: it’s personal (“they aren’t rejecting my work – they’re rejecting me”), it’s pervasive (“this always happens to me”) and it’s permanent (“this will always happen to me”). Baloney!
Rejection is overblown. I often recommend to people who are wrestling with what they consider to be huge problems to simply write them down. Often our problems become overblown in our minds. Writing them down and looking at them in the sunlight causes them to lose some of their menace. So you got rejected. Big deal. So did JK Rowling.
Rejection is a rung on a ladder. If you’ve ever had a sales role where you need to generate your business by beating the streets and calling on phones, then rejection is your constant companion. But in all endeavors there emerges a generally accepted set of metrics which result in success – for instance you might need to call 100 people to get 10 meetings, which in turn leads to 3 proposals and from those proposals, one closed sale. 99 rejections per win. 99 rungs in a ladder to get over the wall. No matter what, you need to be rejected to prove to yourself and others that you’re working. Most problems people have are tied to not being rejected enough.
Rejection is feedback, and feedback is a gift. Look for the information in the rejection that is useful. Once you’ve determined what valuable insight (if any) you can glean from the rejection, then toss the rest of it aside.
Remember this phrase. It’s not for you.
Rejection isn’t easy because we attach it to our sense of self – and that’s exactly the problem. Sure, it’s easy for me to write about rejection when it’s theoretical and distant, but we we all know that real rejection stings.
No matter. Remember that your problem is probably not that you’re being rejected too much. Its more likely that you’re not being rejected enough. So get out there and get rejected.
Good luck!