Five ways to deal with rejection so that you can bounce back stronger
Rejection is a part of life. If I look back at my life, I have been rejected in love, work, friendships, new opportunities, negotiations and more. Some of my first memories of being rejected came from applying for universities out of high school. I would get excited applying and writing essays on why I would be a great addition to so-and-so university, and I would get a rejection letter or worse, sometimes I would not hear anything at all. I took those rejections hard, thinking that my marks were not good enough, that other students applying were much better than me, and that I was not a top student like I was in high school, when compared with others at university.
Over time, I learned, as I think everyone does, that:
- Rejection is not permanent, and is a temporary set back
- Rejection is based on one person, or one organization’s point of view, and not reflective of everyone or every organization as a whole
- Rejection can be good
And around that last point, I identified strategies and ways to see rejection in a positive light so that I could bounce back further, when the inevitable rejection hit.
1. Each rejection is a lesson learned
In university, I was part of the co-op program, which is a way for students to work short ‘internships’ at major companies during the semester. For example, I worked 4-month co-op terms at Telus and Shell and found the experience to be great at connecting what I studied in university, with how to use it at work. But I did not just happen to ‘luck’ into the co-op terms at these companies. I applied to numerous companies, often getting rejected even before getting a chance to interview.
Each time I submitted a resume and cover letter, I saved a local copy. And then each time I did not get an interview, I would take a look at my resume and cover letter to see what I might have did wrong. At the time, my only method of improving was taking a look at successful resumes and cover letters and trying to structure my job application using something similar, but it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that what works for one company does not necessarily work for another company. But what this process taught me is that each time I got rejected was another ‘experience point’ in the video game of my life. And getting numerous rejections would eventually help me ‘level up’ so that I could be better next time.
Takeaway: See rejection as just another experience to learn something new. Take that lesson learned and use it to improve yourself in some way.
2. See the rejection as an opportunity to get better
“Good” is the motto of Jocko Willink. Jocko was the Commander of the SEAL team, Task Unit Bruiser, when he was stationed in Iraq fighting in the Battle of Ramadi. He is also the co-owner of the leadership consulting company, Echelon Front, and co-author of the best selling leadership book, Extreme Ownership.
“Good” is Jocko’s way of dealing with setbacks and rejection. Whenever his direct subordinate would come to him with a problem or setback, he would reply “good”. Why? He saw setbacks and rejections as an opportunity:
- Did not get the funding for your company? Good, you own more of your company.
- Did not get promoted? Good, more time to get better so that when you are promoted, you are doubly ready.
- Did not get the job you wanted? Good, more time to get more experience and build a better resume.
- Unexpected problem? Good, opportunity to find creative solutions.
What a fantastic way of looking at problems in your life. And let’s face it, we are all going to face rejection and setbacks at some point, so we might as well face it head on and positively.
Takeaway: The next time a problem comes up, reply ‘good’. Learn to see how rejections and setbacks can be opportunities. Ask yourself, what is the silver lining to this?
3. Watch your self talk
I have been reading Shad Helmstetter’s What to say when you talk to your self and it has changed how I think about my self talk. Some people use self talk to get through challenges (“Bob, you can get through this), but we are often not consciously aware of all the subconscious self talk that goes through our minds in a day.
This self talk is like a program that runs on our laptop. We can get our laptop (our selves) to do different things, but then the program runs and we do the same thing on our laptops despite trying to do something different. This, Shad explains, is why people are motivated to go to the gym at the start of the year, but their self talk eventually wears them down to the point of their usual habits of sitting in front of the TV after work and eating take out all the time.
Rejection is not great, but what is worse is what you tell yourself on why you were rejected. For example, any time I try to apply for new work, I rarely get an interview. If I do this often enough, my self talk becomes “I’m not good enough for these companies” and that eventually becomes “I’m not employable”. When you start telling yourself that you are not employable, your behaviour starts to translate into actions. You do not check your resume or cover letter for typos or grammatical errors because you’re not going to get the job. Or you don’t spend the time to research the company so that you can make sure that your experiences and points align with their values because they won’t hire you.
Even if you are aware of this negative self talk, you cannot just try to ‘silence’ your mind of all negativity. The way to overcome this is to fill your mind with positive self talk, so much so, that there is no room for negativity. For example, if you are struggling looking for work, take some time out of your day, preferably in the morning when your mind is fresh, and repeat after me:
- I am a skilled and accomplished worker that will be an asset to any company I apply for.
- My resume and cover letter are perfect. There are no spelling or grammar mistakes. My cover letter catches the recruiter’s attention. My resume links directly to the job application’s required experience.
- Before every interview, I will do my best to understand everything there is to know about the company. I will know their values, their mission statement, their culture and how I can be an asset to them.
- Contrastingly, every job interview is also a chance for me to understand whether the company is a fit with my values, my mission, and my personality. I will not accept jobs that are not a fit for me.
- Any time I do not hear from a company, it is their loss.
- I can make an immediate and direct impact to the company’s bottom line once I get hired. I have done this at previous companies I have worked for, and will do this again.
- My dream job is just around the corner. It may take some time, but it will be worth it.
Takeaway: What are you struggling with right now? What are you telling yourself as you are struggling? Notice what negative language you are using (both in your mind and out loud) and replace that with positive language. Repeat every day.
4. Understand that rejection is part of the process
In Neil Pasricha’s best seller You are awesome, he writes about how love and relationships take time and practice, reflecting on his own journey through marriage and divorce before finding his life partner. In a Youtube video titled Why you should have more one night stands, he cites a study done in the UK that says that the average man will have kissed 16 people, have 10 sexual partners, 6 one night stands, 4 disaster dates, 4 relationships less than a year, have 2 relationships more than a year, fall in love twice, be heartbroken twice, cheat once, and be cheated on once before they find their life partner.
Since the study is about an average man, not everyone will have the same experiences (some will have more, some will have fewer), but Neil cites the study to ask this great question: do you want to go through all of those things before finding the man or woman of your dreams?
Because that is what you have to go through on the way to your life partner. And if you are currently having tough luck in love, was cheated on, recently divorced or broken up, well, you may be on the path described above.
And I’m certain that this applies to other areas of life as well. Are you not finding that your job is satisfying all of your requirements? Do you find yourself reaching a plateau on a new skill? Look at it as a hurdle in an obstacle course and not the finish line.
5. Find a way around rejection
One of my favourite books is James Altucher’s Choose Yourself. The reason I like it so much is because his book talks about how unsatisfying it is to try to appease gatekeepers.
For example, people may spend all of their free time writing a book. It could be the best book ever, but because they never got an agent, or a publishing company never saw its potential, the book sits as an electronic file on a laptop.
James argues that in this day and age, there are ways around these ‘supposed’ gatekeepers.
- Want to publish your book? You can self publish through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing
- Want to create a film? You can shoot it on your phone and upload it to Youtube.
- Want to start a company with little to no funding? Depends on the company, but you can crowd fund to get buy-in and funds for your company before starting.
What would typically be a ‘barrier’ previously, is not. You have the freedom to do things yourself. And while you take on all the risk (though I would argue that it is riskier trying to go through a gatekeeper), you also reap more of the rewards if there are any.
Another great book about this is Alex Banayan’s book The Third Door. Alex documents his story of going onto The Price is Right to get money to fund the research and writing of the book. In life, there is the main door, and then there is a second door, but Alex points out, there is often times a third door that people rarely know about. And because so few people know about this third door, nor do they take the time and energy to get access to it, it has the least competition.
For example, look at getting a job. The main way is to apply through the company’s job website. Many people do this. A second door would be to network your way in and get a referral from the company’s employee. A third door could be, in Vanessa Van Edward’s case, building support from the ground up. Vanessa talks about a story of her e-mailing a support member a fancy presentation on why her course should be on CreativeLive. She knew that the support member would e-mail her presentation around because it was so different from other e-mails. As it got passed around internally in the company, it eventually made its way to the highest levels, where they eventually contacted Vanessa and her course was made available on CreativeLive. People might think of applying to jobs through the company site. Or they may try to network and get referrals to get into a company. But few people would think to get support through an e-mail at the support level where it would be forwarded and grow like a wildfire through the company so that eventually everyone would know who she is and how her course was right for the company.
Takeaway: Why are you being rejected? Is there a way around the rejection? Could you chart a path through that goes around whatever is blocking you? Get creative!
Final thought
Rejection is a temporary setback. It’s not a permanent state, unless you think of it as such. What’s important is how we deal with rejection. Do we see it as a bump along a long path? Can we see it as an opportunity? In a positive light? Can we carve a path around whatever is blocking us?