How to Overcome Rejection

The sting of rejection is a feeling like no other, and it comes in many different forms. The first thing that may come to mind could be getting turned down by a love interest, a job opportunity, or a school. But more often than not, it is anything as small as not receiving an invitation to a party or getting informed the concert you‘ve been saving up for is sold out. And when the realization hits, the ache hits harder. It’s a feeling we’ve all experienced and are bound to again at some point—it’s inevitable. But the question is, next time, how can we prepare and how will we cope?

1. Stay Positive

Rejections hurt. And we like to push aside our feelings and ignore the facts of the matter. To be able to move on, you have to be able to acknowledge. Stop brushing it off and begin channeling your emotions. Whether it’s confiding in someone you trust or jotting down all your emotions in a journal, it still works. Although sometimes we like to dwell on the matter a bit too much, if you worry about the negative, you’ll never get over the experience. Not only will you keep reliving it, but it’ll just hurt more. It’s so easy to get caught up in an emotion so painful that it causes discouragement. So instead, focus on working out those feelings, but at the same time, don’t sweat it.

2. Don’t Blame Yourself

Controlling your thoughts is crucial to being able to overlook rejection. When it occurs, convince yourself that the reason doesn’t fall on your account. In other words, don’t be too hard on yourself. For example, if you didn’t make the team for your favorite sport, don’t say, “I got turned down because I’m a horrible player,” but rather, “I didn’t make the team because there were other players who had more experience. Otherwise, you’ll start to genuinely believe you can never improve and eventually won’t try out again. Take it as confidence to do better next time and take the advice to heart, which brings us to our next point.

3. Use it to Your Advantage

Rather than seeing it as a glass half empty, see it as a glass half full. First, evaluate the situation. You took a risk, and sure, it may have backfired. But what happened? What didn’t happen? What do you need to work on? What don’t you need to work on? When you reassess the situation, you view it from a new perspective. You understand what you have down, and what you don’t. So come the future, you will have a new mindset to confide in. It’s simply an opportunity for self-improvement. Take this time for yourself and make yourself a promise—to wake up tomorrow morning, because it simply is not the end of the world.