How To Deal With Rejection

Ouch. Rejection can hurt. No matter how confident you are, it can be hard to deal with. Here are the Dos and Don’ts for surviving rejection:


Do

• Allow yourself to feel bad…for a short time. It’s ok to feel badly after being rejection – everyone feels that way so don’t fight it. Let yourself feel hurt but put a time limit on it. Don’t wallow for days in misery. Just acknowledge that you feel badly and then move on.
• Feel good for trying. It takes major courage to put yourself out there and ask someone out. Whether or not they say yes, it was impressive that you even had the guts to do it, so feel good about the fact that you put yourself out there.
• Take some time apart. Give yourself some space from the person who rejected you so that you can get over it and heal your hurt or embarrassment in private.
• Shrug it off. If you act like you can just bounce back from rejection with no problems then sooner or later you’ll start to believe it. Act in a way that you want your emotions to mirror.
• Focus your sights on something else. Throw yourself into a new goal or project for a positive distraction.

Don’t

• Shy away from taking chances in the future. Don’t let rejection get the best of you by scaring you away from putting yourself out there in the future. Learn from it and see it as a practice round for the future.
• Make a huge deal of it. If you act like it’s the end of the world, it will seem that way to the other person to. If you act like it’s no big deal and you can still face them without being awkward, then that’s what will happen.
• Tell everyone about it beforehand. If you do, you’ll have to tell them all about how you were rejected. Having to tell everyone and re-hash your rejection will only make you feel worse. If no one knows about it, no one will know that you’ve been rejected.
• Beat yourself up. Don’t turn rejection into a pity party and beat yourself up for being a loser. You showed great courage in putting yourself out there and took a risk – so focus on feeling good about that.
• Assume that it’s you. Don’t assume that they said no because of you. Maybe they have something else going on and that was their reason for saying no. It’s not necessarily because they don’t like you or because of any faults that you have.