How To Think About Rejection

Everyone will encounter rejection when going for opportunities in their careers, relationships and other ambitions. These are tools to help you manage your mental state when this happens.

Tactics

Better

understand that there is a better opportunity out there for you, which dwarfs whatever you think you’ve lost. If you lose five today, but gained a hundred tomorrow, you wouldn’t care. If you were sure that the future holds better, then you would not waste any time focusing on the lesser chance.

The problem therefore isn’t what you lost, but rather, your belief about your ability to move onwards and find even better. If you truly reflected on your past, you might recall other times where you lost a job opportunity or chance to connect with someone, and ended up in a much better situation later on. Ironically, not believing that there is something else better for you reduces the chances of finding it.

Learn

Dwelling in the pain of a failed opportunity prevents you not only from seeing new ones, but also learning from the past in order to be better prepared next time.

Infinity

Consider the fact that you may never have been in a position to even try in the first place. For example, you may simply not have heard about the job you applied for. Or you may have walked down a different street and never even met the person you hoped to connect with. Every single day we miss out on many opportunities that we do not even know about because we were not in the right place at the right time.

In reality, there are an infinite number of opportunities that each person is never even in position to attempt each and every second of their life. We do not harbour sadness over any of the huge volume of opportunities that we never saw. So why waste energy over the one opportunity that simply began but failed to materialise fully?

Uncertainty

As humans, we have greatly imperfect knowledge. Only an all-seeing being knows the outcome of all scenarios. The end result of this failed opportunity could have been unpleasant.

Getting that job could have led to you being made redundant in some years, becoming chronically stressed or simply missing an even better opportunity. Being with that person may not have ended in happiness overall. It is best not to be emotionally affected by mystery hypothetical situations that could have been unfruitful.