5 Tips in Handling Rejection

#1 Acknowledge that anyone can be rejected. Moreover, rejection is happening all around you, all of the time. In other words, you are not alone. Clearly, you'd have preferred that it didn't happen but it has, yet no matter who you are, rejection will happen now and then. Trying to avoid it will limit your life's experience, not improve it. #2 Allow yourself to feel bad initially. It is normal to feel bad, so don't try to bottle up your disappointment and sadness. However, don't allow yourself to feel this way for too long––you risk coloring your future endeavors with a negative impression if you start seeing this as something that will happen again, no matter what you do. You still have control, you still have an opportunity to learn from this experience and to approach the future wiser and more fortified. #3 Understand that ongoing feelings of sorrow are self-delusions. For example, if the rejection you've experienced is that someone has turned you down for a date, your continuing sorrow is a reflection of believing that you need that person in your life to feel happy. This isn't true. Being around a person, talking to people, kissing a girlfriend––these are all just pleasures. They can certainly bring you temporary happiness, but they're not permanent and they don't define your own choices to be happy within. If you continue to think that these pleasures are what constitute true happiness, you will keep fooling yourself into believing that you should feel terrible because you don't have the person or didn't get the opportunity. This chase for a pleasure based solely on what you haven't got can easily become an addiction that only brings you more sorrow in the long run. * Pleasures are temporary, they come and go and have no permanent place in your life. Understanding this will help you to understand that pleasures aren't the source of your happiness. Being happy is an internal process, something that comes from within. By realizing that rejection isn't loss of your inner happiness, you won't make yourself suffer. * There are only two ways your mood can be affected by others. Either you could have been chosen to be with someone or to do something and you'll add the pleasure of that experience to your already happy life; or, you'll experience rejection, yet importantly, nothing will have changed in your existing happiness in life––brief disappointment is normal but your happiness level should remain constant. * Life is not about being sad and looking for things to make you happy. It's case of being happy and taking part in pleasures that give you a boost to your already happy life. #4 Do not seek to avoid rejection and pretend it is something that you must learn to "live with". When you free yourself from the delusions of need driven by external forces, you free yourself from the pain associated with rejection. Rejection does not cause pain, friend. Only you do. #5 Do not take rejection personally. This commonly stated phrase is not at odds with the fact that the rejection probably feels very personal. The point behind this sentiment is that you are often at the receiving end of something far more complex than what you're able to ascertain. To you, it's a simple case of a "no" to your request, proposal, hopes and dreams. To you, there may be weeks, months or years of planning, dreaming and readying yourself behind your request. And yet, there are still two sides to this tale: First, the person doing the rejecting is often unaware of the costs to you in terms of time, resources and energy expended. And even if that person is aware of this, you're probably even less aware of what the person doing the rejection has to account for when reaching a decision to decline your request. For example, a person may reject your request for a date because he is still disentangling himself from a long-distance relationship that he doesn't like to talk about openly. Or, an employer receives 5,000 equally excellent applications from people who have striven as hard and as bravely as you have and she has had to use very basic reasons for rejecting most of the pile in order to be able to cope with the influx of applications. Or, your oil painting might not have been accepted because the gallery has to account for ensuring variety for viewers between watercolors and oils and it had to take a tough decision because there was an imbalance of too many oils and not enough watercolors. Often rejection is based in either the complexity of feelings of the decider or the complexity of the situation before the decider. It is more likely to be logistics, a need for simplicity, an inner uncertainty or a temporary lack of attraction that brings about rejection, as opposed to pure dislike of you or disbelief in your abilities, worthiness or acceptability. And even if you do find out that you've been rejected because your efforts are not up to a standard they need to be, this is not about your sense of worthlessness––it's about needing to keep learning, experimenting and growing into your full potential. Do not make rejection into a case of questioning your own worth––that's basically what it means to not take rejection personally. * Be careful if you're a "they should" thinker. This style of thinking requires people to behave in a certain way, as in "they should recognize how brilliant/talented/extraordinary I am". Leaving aside whether or not you're actually doing enough to prove the things you feel others should be seeing in you, this kind of thinking gives away power––yours––to other people and leaves you in a position of relying on their acceptance of you for you to feel good about yourself. This slippery slope thinking style risks turning rejection into a regular occurrence in your life because you keep setting yourself up to be judged and found wanting. * Be conscious that many people feel bad when they have to reject a request. Few people reject requests from spite or for sheer entertainment.