Rejection can be hugely damaging to the psyche.
You don’t get promoted at work. What do you conclude? I’m not as smart as my co-workers. My boss doesn’t like me.
Your child doesn’t get selected for the school play. She gets into a tailspin on how she doesn’t have any talent. You start to think maybe it’s you. You perhaps gave her poor genes!
A cherished relationship breaks-up. You think you’re a loser. Nobody loves you.
You don’t hear back after a first date. You conclude you’re not as hot/handsome/pretty as you thought you were.
You send a pitch about your first book to many publishers. Nobody calls back. You think you’re a lousy writer who’s never going to get published.
We’ve all experienced rejection - big and small - in our lives.
It can be piercing with the pain lingering for days, sometimes months or even years.
I used to have a math tutor in high school who never got over the pain of having been rejected by his first lover. He swore never to like women again. He subconsciously carried around this negativity for the rest of his life. I still remember feeling his bitterness every time I met him even though I was so removed from his life story.
In my own career, I was booted off a prestigious project when I worked in our London office. The pain of that rejection lasted for months. Even now (more than fifteen years later) when I think about it, there is a teeny weeny remnant of hurt. Maybe I was just not good enough.
Rejection can be hugely damaging to the psyche. If we allow it.
What? Is there a way to actually put it aside and get on with life?
Anjali Bhimani, authour of the best selling book, “I am fun size and so are you” seems to think so.
I was listening to Todd Henry interview her on his Accidental Creative podcast on the subject of art, mindset and creative careers.
She shared a very practical way of dealing with rejection in this podcast. The number one mistake we make is that we allow rejection to impact our identity and self-worth.
Not getting a promotion does not mean you are not smart.
Your child not getting selected for one school play doesn’t mean she is not talented.
A break-up doesn’t mean you are a loser.
A rejection after a first date doesn’t mean you don’t have good looks.
Not getting called by a publisher doesn’t mean you are not a good writer.
All it means is that in that instance, you were not chosen.
There could have been numerous reasons you were rejected that have nothing to do with you.
Even if it had to do with you, you shouldn’t make this an indictment on yourself that could possibly take years to recover from.
Deal with the rejection. Sleep over it. Brood all you want for 24 hours. Then, let it go. Don’t connect it to your sense of self-worth and identity.
What you can do though is to think about what the rejection has taught you. Where could you have done things differently? Can you improve in one way or another? What is this rejection telling you that could be useful to your life.
I love how Sylvester Stallone thinks about rejection. “I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.”
This is a very powerful and practical way to cope with rejection. To just get on with it.
Over to you now:
How do you deal with rejection? Does it impact your whole psyche?
Does this method seem too practical and not respectful enough of emotions?
Is there someone in your life who might benefit from this approach?