For most of my life, I’ve had a fairly healthy attitude towards rejection. Mainly because the ‘never-die-wondering’ side of my personality tends to override the side of me that gets all sensitive hearing the words “thanks, but no thanks”.
In recent years however, for whatever reason, my relationship with rejection got a little warped!
Put simply, because I knew how horrible it felt for me to give someone a knock back, I suddenly found myself completely paralysed at the thought of putting someone else in a position where they had to do the rejecting! It got to the point where every time I got rejected, I would feel both my own discomfort AND the (perceived) discomfort of the person doing the rejecting.
So I stopped putting myself out there.
I stopped pitching articles to editors I knew personally.
I stopped suggesting ideas for collaborations with like-minded people.
I even started to hold back from reaching out and offering help/advice to people via social media because I was imagining them thinking ‘yeah thanks for that, but you haven’t really helped.’
It was probably around that point I realised things were getting a bit silly. It’s all well and good to put yourself in other people’s shoes in order to feel empathy. But I was putting myself into other people’s shoes and feeling pain/thinking thoughts that may not have even be there to feel/think!
So last year I set out to get over it.
Every single time I found myself going to do something, and then holding back because “oh no, I don’t want to put x in the position of having to say no to me” I’d catch myself, and force myself to do that thing.
Here’s what came from me putting myself out there again:
1. I got myself on to people’s radars
For whatever reason, we all think everyone knows the kind of things we’d like to be considered for/invited to/included in. But the reality is, everyone’s trying to keep track of so many things now, it’s easy to forget about someone (especially if that someone lives in Perth like me). In reaching out to people with ideas and suggestions, even if their initial answer was “no”, I was putting myself on their radar for types of things I wanted to be considered for.
2. Every no brought me closer to a yes
On a good few occasions, a couple months after being told “no I don’t want to work with you on this particular thing”, I’d get an approach from that same person saying “but would you be interested in working with me on this.” They’d never have known I was up for any kind of collaboration if I’d held back from the initial approach
3. I learned to stop trying to read people’s minds
Before getting in touch with someone about something, I’d write a story in my head about the reasons why they’d say no. And on pretty much every occasion, if the answer was no, it was never for the reason I’d anticipated.
4. I eliminated regrets and “what ifs”
As mentioned above, I really don’t like to die wondering. And I really hate missing the chance to put my hand up for something. One time the occasion arose where I’d held back asking for something while a peer did ask. And of course they got an opportunity I’d have loved to have taken up. Lesson learned!
5. I learned to focus on the best that can happen
Perhaps the biggest thing I learned from getting over myself with regard to rejection was that the gulf between the worst that could happen (someone says ‘no thanks’) and the best that could happen (opportunities, learnings, relationship building) was huge. Ridiculously huge.
In short, the pain of being rejected (or the pain of putting someone in the position to reject me!) was minuscule compared to the pain of missing out on being in the position to take advantage of the best thing that could happen.
What’s your relationship with rejection like? Pragmatic? Or ‘avoid at all costs’?!