Rejection can definitely feel painful, but have you ever considered that it isn’t necessarily the enemy? Could you perhaps see rejection as a helpful guide?

I say this because we might not always know what’s in our best interest.

WHAT?!?

Think about it this way, perhaps you're convinced that working for a specific corporation is your dream job, only they don’t hire you. Instead, a smaller organization does, and it turns out to be exactly where you fit and what you needed to build your skills and open new doors. 

Rejection offers a chance to re-think your plans, to realign or challenge your initial beliefs, and ensure that where you think you want to go is indeed in your highest and best good.

Experiencing rejection is simply a part of life. So the invitation is to be willing to try again and again. 

Most people hear “no” once and give up. The challenge is to hear “no” and persevere right through until you hear “yes.”

I recently submitted a book proposal for a competition that a publisher was holding. I didn’t win. At first I was a little shocked but then I told my daughter that they’d received something like 160 entries. She looked at me and said, “Mom, that’s less than a 1% chance!”

Later, I was talking to an artist friend who said, “I tell everyone – submit, submit submit - because what a committee will choose today is different than what they’ll choose tomorrow. Don’t be afraid.” 

Why?

Because committees are made up of people who may choose Sculpture 1 today and Sculpture 2 tomorrow just as they may want Book X today and Book Y tomorrow.

It’s about how you interpret these momentary set backs. 

Do they shut you down? Do you internalize them and think you're unworthy or undeserving? 

Or do you use rejection as fuel to carry on regardless, knowing that you’re getting what you need, and that life’s taking you exactly where you need to go?

It’s a re-frame. 

Look at rejection not as an enemy but instead as a fact of life, a roadblock, or even a useful guide to course correct and learn from.

A friend of mine, a retired high school math teacher, participated in a coaching program recently that pushed him to actually get rejected every single day, a way to build that rejection muscle. 

He really embraced the challenge, like when he walked into the post office and asked each person in the lengthy line if he could cut them and go to the front. Once they all finally said, NO!”, he bowed, replied, “thank you very much,” and waltzed out the door.

If we remain comfortably complacent, and never take chances, our lives stay the same. 

When we can recognize that rejection is simply a part of life, it loses its power and we become much more willing to try, to ask until we get the YES!

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Image courtesy of StartUp Stock Photos on Pixabay.