Get over Fear of Rejection

I believe that fear is one of the emotions that people have a hard time handling,  more specifically the fear of rejection. Many of us are afraid that other people won’t accept us. The fear of rejection can be really frustrating since it can hold us back in life. Fear of rejection is present in many areas of our lives. It will come up in your social life, dating life, business world, family, and many other areas. We are all human and we all like to feel important, respected, and accepted by others.

However all of you have to realize that you will face rejection  all the time. you might have  worked on a great philosophy paper and put so much effort into it, but your professor tells you it needs improvement. You might have also put so much effort into building your business but you realize that the people you are marketing it to don’t really want your product.  Maybe you are trying to write a book and publishers respond by saying, “ We think that your book lacks great content and won’t sell in the market. We don’t want to take the risk to publish your work”. OUCH. Imagine that feeling in your stomach when someone tells you that. I think that if we don’t learn how to control our emotions when faced with rejection we will lose focus on our dream or goal.

Imagine hearing the words “No”, “I don’t like you”, “ your work isn’t good enough”, “ it is impossible for you to accomplish this”. How does your stomach feel now? The important thing to realize is that we have to be able to handle our emotions correctly in order to get through rejection. When we constantly face rejection we psychologically get exhausted and our mind tends to shift in a very negative thinking mode. After hearing those words, our self esteem drops and our inner voice tells us that “ hey I am going to avoid rejection so I am not going to pursue what I really want.”

I have been through a lot of rejection and I know there is more to come. But what I have found helpful is for me to be mentally prepared to face rejection. What do I mean by this? I mean that you have to be willing to train your mind and emotions to get over it. This means that if you have a client saying that he doesn’t like your product or tells you that it will be useful to him, you have to be willing to move on without feeling upset or put down. In order to do this you have to build up confidence. When you are confident in yourself and what you are trying to offer, you will be able to face rejection easily. Another thing to keep in mind is not to take external  comments too personally.  For example many people will stop meeting new people, especially  in the dating world because the other person doesn’t accept them for who they are. You have to realize that most of the times it has nothing to do with who you are? Your client may not want your service because he feels like he is getting a better deal elsewhere. The date may not have gone well because your partner felt that he/she wasn’t really looking for what they expected. So don’t take any of this personally.

Fear of rejection is programmed into our minds since we were little kids. Think of a time when you were a kid and you tried to join a group of friends to fit in but they just didn’t let you play with them. Maybe you got cut from your school basketball team. Most people that have gone through a lot of rejection in the past since they were young have more trouble overcoming it as they get older.  To get over this try the following:

• Start loving fear and rejection, it will make you grow as a person
• Don’t take rejection personally( 90% of people do this)
• Learn from rejection instead of being put down.

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