Daily Quote: “We keep going back, stronger, not weaker, because we will not allow rejection to beat us down. It will only strengthen our resolve. To be successful there is no other way.” Earl G. Graves
During your life there will be many instances where you will face opposition to your goals. This could be by missing out on a study place at your favourite University or losing out on a job you really had your heart set on getting.
There could be a date you never got asked out on, or a sporting event where your time wasn’t good enough to get selected for the main team or even the Olympic squad of your country.
Or you might be a budding writer and you have had many rejection notes in the post from potential publishers. Whatever the journey you are trying to take in your life, there will be instances where things will not go your way and you will receive rejections.
There are two ways to handling this in a positive manner. The first one is to learn not to take these rejections personally. Don’t think of them as weapons being used against you. There are not a whole bunch of people out to make sure that you don’t succeed.
On the contrary many people are only too eager to help you get further in life. The fact that there are companies who don’t accept your application or your new novel has nothing to do with you personally. It just means that this particular application is not right for you.
It is important for your life path to understand this and to make it a habit to not feel hurt or upset if somebody or some company tells you that you or your product are not suitable for their business, team or situation. It is really not about you.
Everybody in this world is looking after themselves more than they look after others. People work first and foremost in their own best interests. If your offering or talent doesn’t fit into their best interests then you are not accepted. It’s not you, it’s them.
The second skill you need to learn is to look forward. If you have received a rejection slip in the post because the publisher didn’t want to promote your new novel then try somebody else.
Don’t sit around moping and worrying about why you got rejected. In other words, don’t look backwards, continue to look forward. Just because a particular person didn’t think your novel fitted into their stable of books, doesn’t mean that there isn’t one out there somewhere that just might accept it.
J K Rowling, the extremely successful author of the Harry Potter books, had many rejections before her first book was accepted. If any book should have been snapped up by publishers one would have thought Harry Potter would have been it. But no, there were at least 12 publishers who didn’t see this gem when it was presented to them.
How do you know whether your gem will be spotted the first time around, or even the twentieth time? You don’t know. So don’t look backwards when you receive that rejection note. Look forward and call out – next!
