From Sting to Strength: Proven Ways to Overcome Rejection

Rejection, not a good feeling but we’re bound to experience it in our lives at different times. Some can feel dejected for months, or years, from a rejection and others can bounce back from it fairly quickly. Obviously, it depends what kind of rejection it was e.g., a relationship rejection, a job rejection, etc. What if you could become better at handling it though?

Recently, I learned of “Rejection Therapy.” It’s people deliberately putting themselves in positions to get rejected so they can get used to it. Kind of like Exposure Therapy. If you fear something, the idea is to expose yourself to those fears to build up your tolerance and eventually eliminate the fear.

What these people noticed doing Rejection Therapy (from a BBC segment) was quite interesting though. Most people didn’t reject them but went along with the ask or situation. For instance, a woman on an airplane stood up and recorded herself and the other passengers to wish everybody a lovely flight. The passengers went along with it. Another example was someone going up to a person’s table at a restaurant and sitting down to talk. Their takeaways were that most people did not reject them unless it was an outlandish ask e.g., asking them to drive their car.

So, Rejection Therapy is one way to become more resilient to it. Another is seeing rejection in a different light. In the TEDx talk “Overcoming Rejection, When People Hurt You & Life Isn’t Fair” by Darryll Stinson, rejection is seen as redirection or a form of protection. You weren’t meant to be with that person or have that position. Seeing it that way helps me, and the clients I shared this with, with the not-so-great feelings of being rejected. I hope it does the same for you.

I guess this could be categorized under redirection, however, rejection is essentially information. For example, information if you’re not ready for something, if you’ve developed a skill enough, or if this is something you want to continue to pursue. What’s the lesson in the rejection? We typically don’t think of that right away when we are feeling our feelings about being rejected, but there’s important information to be explored.

Hopefully, from reading this you will gain more “rejection ability” a term I heard used in basketball. Yes, it’s important to feel your feelings about being rejected, however, it’s not great when you try to avoid rejection at all costs by not trying new things and situations either: not putting yourself out there in any way.

If you’ve been rejected in some way and would like further support around this, you can schedule a Get Acquainted & Strategy Session to explore next steps.

Best,