Rejection
“A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success.”
Many have dealt with rejection in opportunities, with loved ones, and with strangers. This makes us dislike it because someone is dismissing, excluding, or refusing us, and we want to belong and connect with others, which makes rejection sting a bit. Handling rejection requires an immediate attitude adjustment, and fearing rejection can hold you back from taking risks and reaching for big goals. Fortunately, it is possible to work through rejection. Here are some tips to get you started with dealing with rejection.
Fortify your resilience; life tends to throw unexpected plot twists!
Resilience is the counterpart of rejection, and the benefits of being resilient are fruitful. Resiliency is your ability to recover or bounce back from a setback to keep growing to achieve your full potential. Resilience becomes your healing system by allowing yourself to go through the pain and determine how to recover. Think of yourself as a marine oyster or freshwater mussel creating a pearl. Pearls are made as a natural defense against an irritant, such as a parasite entering the oyster or mussel, to wreak havoc on it. The oyster or mussel slowly secretes layers of aragonite and conchiolin around the irritant to create a pearl. Rejection is the pearl, and when we take healing into our own hands, we are meeting the world on our terms by taking our power back from others and not allowing ourselves to be the victim but the hero of our own story. You have resilience within you and need to learn how to grow it. You can increase resilience by changing your mindset of letting go of the victim mentality and replacing it with focusing on solutions, examining what you can learn from the experience, maintaining a sense of humor, and remembering your strengths. You might find it challenging to grow, but it is certainly worthwhile, and with conscious practice, you can become better at it. Check out the Beaming Blog on Resilience Here for more tips on building resilience.
Cut yourself some slack; even superheroes take coffee breaks!
Self-compassion is quieting one's inner critic and replacing it with a voice of support, understanding, and care. Compassion within is treating yourself with the same kindness and support that you show others. There are three components of self-compassion, and the first is self-kindness, that we are gentle and understand ourselves rather than harshly critical and judgmental. The best advice I can give you is not to beat yourself up. The most harmful mental habit is being tough on ourlselves around rejection. The second is recognizing we are familiar with humanity; we all suffer from rejection, which connects us. Role models and society have influenced us to have certain attitudes about ourselves, such as we are not good enough or have to be a fierce competition, which sets us up for the failure of compassion within. Rather than pitting ourselves against others in an endless comparison game, we must embrace what we share with others and feel more connected and whole. It is okay that we are rejected because this is how we realize that not all is meant for us and that something else is waiting for us. The third is mindfulness when we hold our experience in balanced awareness rather than ignoring or exaggerating our pain. Mindfulness helps us move forward by accepting what has happened and how to move on. We must achieve and combine these three essential elements to be genuinely self-compassionate. Developing steadier feelings of self-worth and self-esteem based on ourselves and not others helps us deal with rejection more healthily and safely.
Don't play the self-blame game; life's more of a choose-your-own-adventure novel.
It's natural to want to know why we are rejected. However, in my experience, there aren't always clear reasons for rejection. And usually, when we don't have answers, we blame ourselves; we assume we weren't enough, we're unlovable, difficult, stupid, the list can go on and on. Remember that we are conditioned early on to believe that we must be perfect; if we are not, we are inadequate, making it easy to blame ourselves. These are beliefs that we need to discard. As an adult, you're better equipped to consider alternative reasons for rejection. There are so many possible reasons for refusal, which are sometimes beyond our control. It's not always about you—and it's unfair to blame yourself or take responsibility for things that were out of your control or to assume you did something wrong. We live in a world where it is acceptable to be selective about who we are, what we want, and who we want in our lives, and others get to decide the same. So try not to take it so personally when you are rejected from something. Take it as a sign that this wasn't the path you were supposed to go down because it may not have been a good fit for you.
You can handle rejection in three ways: dismiss it, let it get to you, or welcome it. It's human nature to feel inadequate in situations of rejection but don't let yourself get lost in it; instead, you must embrace rejection as a part of exploring life's journey. You can do this by creating a mind frame of self-compassion to let go of blame and building resilience to make rejection less painful and help you cope more effectively with it to continue taking risks in life.
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog, and remember, you are a miracle!
Help spread the message to your friends, family, or anyone you have on social media, and don’t forget to subscribe!