How do you deal with rejection?
Is that even the proper question? Should it be how do you overcome rejection? How do you handle rejection? What do you do with rejection?
After 7 months of cold messaging, networking, hundreds of applications, building up skills, and learning more each day, only to be turned down for another candidate at the last interview time and time again, I have been with rejection a lot.
In the short term, I believe you must not let rejection fester into something more than just the rejection at face value. It cannot extrapolate into a faceless amalgamation of defeat or failure. It cannot weigh down someone to become depressive. Rejection will happen, it may happen a lot, it may happen less than others around you. But if it does fester it will grow and affect other aspects of life. In the short term, there are ways to minimize the adjacent effects of rejection. I personally would recommend some kind of physical activity.
For me, my choice of physical activity is going to the gym. And I’ll tell you why, something happens after a while when exercising. The only thing I think about is lifting more weight. And that can be the same for running or playing team sports. Focusing on the body and relieving the mind. It creates this zen-like feeling where I am completely within the moment, just one more rep, one more set, I can go heavier right now, I can go longer. Everything else is not important in that moment and it feels so relieving to not have to worry about anything else.
However this doesn’t have to be limited to physical activity, obviously, some find this feeling through meditation, it could be building legos, or perhaps the catharsis from playing certain video games. The whole idea is creating an environment where it’s just the current thing you are doing and nothing else. Then using that as a tool, put into your routine, this will create a positive feedback loop so that when rejection does occur, you have something that is already programmed to provide some kind of relief, in the short term.
But that’s the short term, and only one idea that I’ve had.
What about a longer solution? Well, it’s more complicated.
Continuous rejection lends itself to the festering I mentioned. Some thoughts that may begin to become more pronounced may be something like “Am I good enough?” or “I could be trying harder, doing more” It can affect your mood beyond the point of frustration, to a point of anger. Personally when I hit a certain low spot my mood completely changed. I was angry and bitter, I was projecting onto people, upset at them because I kept being upset with myself. I had thoughts repeated in my head of disappointment, and spite that I couldn’t think of anything else when engaging with others. My friends came to me to tell me of their accomplishments and could not respond with joy. It was only contempt. It’s then you may need help, a support system. I see a therapist every two weeks and talking to someone about all these things is incredibly fulfilling. It has helped me out of some dark holes. Having people there that don’t shun you when you act this way is also incredibly helpful. Because if you’re like me, these dark moments aren’t actually you, it's a frustration boiling over. So another tip is with the inner monologue.
Some folks don’t have one and I guess you can skip this part. But I have an inner monologue. It mostly helps me with reading or just kind of there I guess, it’s a bit ambiguous to put to words. Regardless this inner monologue is a part of me, and when I have reached low points it can really be mean. It’s like an unfriendly presence saying some of the nastiest things. And one night I was watching a video by Dry Creek Wrangler School about loneliness, it said “if you’re with yourself… and yourself is always beating you up… you’re not going to want to be with yourself” It stuck with me, it was so obvious yet I needed an outside source to provide reassurance. My inner monologue, me, I need to be kinder to myself. I need to be easier on myself or I will continue to spiral downwards. So I found that realizing this and actively working on changing my inner monologue was essential to my overall mental health and dealing with rejection. Replacing the negative thoughts with more positive thoughts is crucial. One thought that has been helpful is by Dr. Kate Sweeny who says, “Rejection is not Failure”. Rejection isnt it, it’s not game over. Another positive thought is that just because we get rejected does not take away from the accomplishments we’ve made. Try to think of a couple of positive thoughts, things that make sense to you and affect you or make you rethink things, you may need help from a friend. Write a couple down and practice saying them to yourself. It sounds silly, but it can help.
The easiest road is never letting the rejection completely take over and create other negative feelings. Rejection is like a gateway emotion to other more sinister manifestations.
However, another technique I found helpful in mitigating the other depressive emotions involve taking adequate breaks. But a special trick is to not just take a break, but frame it as work! This is a work-break, it is a break, however long you need, that is a dedicated time to gather yourself and rehabilitate your mind. However, it’s special because we are framing it as work to avoid feeling lazy or stressed about doing nothing. It's a required and planned time that is needed to be able to work harder, more efficiently, and generally better. If you have to, frame it as such a necessity that without it you would be worse off, and your work would suffer. This is to foster a healthy relationship with taking the mind away from the situation. If a rejection hits hard and you have this planned break, you have another safe time to take your mind away from the situation. Some may try to skew this as avoidance, but with rejection, the event has already occurred. There is no going back and changing it after the fact. These techniques are for after a rejection has happened and how to properly face it, and then get back on the grind and produce the best work you can do.
When all is said and done, dealing with rejection is only that, you’re dealing with just the current rejection. I have not talked about success.
Because overcoming rejection eventually becomes synonymous with success. And to succeed there must be some kind of drive or motivation.
But that’s another discussion, how to succeed is another step toward your goal.
Remember, be kind to yourself
Have a good day and be well.