Dealing With Rejection
How to create positivity to override the negative emotion of rejection
We’ve all been through our fair share of rejection. My business partner and I have been looking for investment recently for the new app we’re launching and, as you can imagine, that’s been a hard journey. We’ve certainly had some rejection. And no matter how defiant you are, or how much you try to see it from their side, or how much you tell yourself it’s not personal, it will always get to you. Especially if you have a number of ‘No’s’ in succession. You take the first 3 on the chin, but then your chin gets bruises. And after that, it hurts.
It is humanely impossible not to feel rejection. This emotion is embedded deep into our psyche because of our primal need to be part of a ‘pack’. In order to survive we need to part of a pack and when we aren’t accepted into that tribe, we feel shame, sadness, or grief. There’s evidence to show that the same areas of the brain become activated when we experience rejection as when we experience physical pain. So, yeah, it actually does hurt because we associate being accepted with survival. And if we don’t feel accepted, that puts us in pain mode.
Rejection is unavoidable. If you’re looking for a job or trying to raise investment, you’re about to embark on a journey where you are likely to be rejected many times in a row and you’d be naive to think otherwise. There is a ‘Yes’ light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is littered with ‘No’ hurdles you need to overcome.
So, for these kinds of multiple-rejection journeys, there are some things you can do to prepare yourself a little more. Heightening your self-awareness and anticipation will soften the blows. Here are 5 things we suggest you can do to deal with the rejection you will come across…
Positive affirmations
This has long been a practice for anticipating fear or nerves in a situation where you may feel exposed or threatened (such as public speaking), but it’s actually effective for the aftermath of a negative experience.
By telling yourself how amazing you are and listing all the things you love about yourself on a daily basis and after you’ve had some rejection, you’ll not only simply be reinstalling confidence in yourself but you’ll also be releasing the same response your brain has when you do something that makes you happy, like having a delicious meal.
So next time you receive a rejection, go to the nearest mirror and declare your love for yourself and remind yourself why you’re incredible and whoever rejected you is a moron.
Tell people around you what to say
This one is relatively simple. If we’ve been rejected, it’s natural for us to want to talk about it with someone close to us. But sometimes (and in my case more often than not), they respond in a way that doesn’t reassure you or make you more confident, they try to problem-solve or ask lots of questions which you struggle to answer or they underplay it or even overplay it.
In anticipation for when these situations arise, it’s totally acceptable for you to tell them how you want them to respond. For example, personally there is nothing more that I hate than pity — so when I’ve been rejected, the last thing I want is for someone to be sad for me. Equally, I struggle to stay calm when people try to problem solve my situation as I get frustrated with explaining the avenues I’ve already explored and why the different situations don’t work. I tend to just want an ear to vent to. If someone wants to lift my spirits, they simply have to tell me how great just as I am, how I dodged a bullet and how there are plenty of other options out there. I want positivity, not pity or proactivity.
Think about what response and reassurance you really want from your confidante and tell them that that’s how they can make you feel better in these situations.
Set yourself achievable goals
Rejection can come at every level, but it’s possible for you to reduce this to baby steps. For example, if you’re applying for a job, you might set the goal of rejection at ‘did I get the job or not’. However, if you reset your goals to more digestible steps it takes to getting a job, this may reframe your rejection to be majority success:
- Submit application
- Get a response for the application
- Be asked for an interview
- Get feedback for the interview
- Be offered the role
If you succeed through to step 4 but then are told in the feedback for the interview that they aren’t going to offer you the role, then you’ve achieved 3/5 success rate!
Find an indulgence
Offset your negative experience with a positive one. If every time you get a rejection, you indulge in doing something that makes you feel good (like baking brownies to have with a consolation cup of tea), then it will make the negative feeling a little better. What you’re doing is rewarding yourself for the effort and time you put in and regaining the power from the rejector — don’t allow them to dictate your emotion.
This may even eventually force you to look forward to rejection — who doesn’t love consuming freshly baked goods on the regular?
Find out who you are
This is a more long-term solution. By finding out who you are, why rejection effects you personally and how you can eventually become comfortable with it, you will be ensuring all the future rejection you get can be dealt with effectively. Everyone has their own bad experiences with rejection that stay with us forever. Everyone has their triggers that make it that much more horrible.
Discover more about yourself and why rejection hurts you — I wrote an article a while ago about how to heighten your self-awareness and find out more about who you are as an individual, which is worth a read. The ultimate solution is longterm therapy (it doesn’t have to be for something specific, lots of people go simply because they want to be more comfortable in general with themselves and their emotions) — there are therapists online that are more accessible and affordable (especially in the current climate).
However, if you’re asking specifically about the job search or your career, as I imagine lots of readers are, I recommend joining a number of instagram or facebook groups about dealing with rejection or career anxiety and connecting with others who are going through the same process. There is solace in solidarity. Here are some groups you can join:
This article has actually been turned into a workshop by the author Sam and her business partner Mae. Watch or listen to them chat through the reasons for creating the article and how they’ve actioned these points in their own lives here.
This workshop is the first in a series titled ‘The Career & Self-Development Series by ERIC’. Click here to see the rest of the workshops — all are action-focused and designed to not only help you know what you want from a career but also find companies that are hiring, get in touch with them, interview with them and find people who can help you get the future you want.
Mae & Sam run ERIC together, a community that empowers Gen Z creatives through career & self-development content.
ERIC are launching a career and self-development app. Sign up to be an app tester at meet-eric.co/app.
