The wise men said, “the fear of rejection is the bane of success.”

If you fear that employees, customers, colleagues, or coworkers will reject you, the fear makes you less effective as you’ll avoid making difficult calls. Once the fear of rejection hits you, it worsens, leading to more failure.

If you want to succeed, you must learn to cope with frequent rejections and learn ways to use rejection as a stepping stone towards your ultimate goals.

Types of Rejections

There are two types of rejections:

• Valid rejections – are when failure happens because of something you can change. For example, if you’re meeting with a client and make a mistake, like getting the client’s name wrong. If the client leaves, that’s a valid rejection.
• Invalid rejections – are when the failure occurs because of something out of your control. For instance, you’re calling a client to close a deal, and the client is not reachable. If the deal doesn’t go through, that’s an invalid rejection.

Rejection can cause physical pain as psychologists say that rejection activates the same brain areas that are activated when we feel pain. 

Reasons People Feel Rejected

People feel rejected when:

• Rejection happens frequently – suppose you’ve applied for over 50 jobs and got negative responses, you may convince yourself that you’re unqualified or there’s something wrong with you. This can make you feel lonely, isolated, and rejected.
• You’re emotionally involved – married couples can attest. When you’ve invested your effort and time into a relationship, it hurts a lot when your partner doesn’t agree with something you care about.
• You love and respect the rejector – when the person you deeply respect and trust doesn’t do what you prefer, the rejection carries more weight and authority.

It’s crucial to know these factors to understand why you feel rejected and make the rejection less harmful by dropping the assumptions and beliefs that created the feeling.

If you feel you’re getting too many rejections, learn other people’s norms in your field of expertise. For example, a salesperson makes a hundred calls before getting a prospect. Know that you’re not alone, and it’s normal to be rejected.

If you’re emotionally involved, disassociate your involvement with the results. You may disagree with your partner about something, but you can still be friends. 

If you respect the rejector, you can interfere with a bit of reality. Understand that they’re just human like you; there are no gods on earth.

How to Handle Rejection and Turn it To Success

Rejections are never easy, but the truth is they are necessary to climb the ladder of success. They give the chance to learn from mistakes and work towards long-term growth and success.

Some of the ways to use rejection to your benefit include:

Feedback

The best way to improve on anything is to seek advice for improvement and work on it. Getting relevant criticism from those more knowledgeable, like getting feedback from employers after a rejection, is an opportunity to learn what employers want from their candidates.

Most companies that value their candidates’ experience give feedback to their applicants, but it’s not always this way.

If the feedback is not given, you may contact the hiring employer shortly after getting the rejection to access and get valuable feedback. The feedback helps you identify your shortcomings or give you things to work on for your following interview and self-promotion skills.

Asking for more feedback also illustrates a willingness to know the critics to develop and shows your interest in future roles within the company. Although some hiring managers may be reluctant to give you feedback because of a potential protocol, asking for feedback gives you a final chance to make a good impression which could help you in the future.

Research, the Successful Employee

Rejection gives you the chance to keep an eye on the selected candidate. Although it may take some time, you may find the hired person present on the company website or their profiles on LinkedIn or Myjobmag.

Researching them gives you a platform to study the profile to see their experience, knowledge, and skills, which led to their Success. It also helps you learn from your mistakes, thus improving the chances of success in your future interviews.

It gives you the chance to connect with them to learn from them, network, and show interest in applying and finding similar job opportunities.

Turning Rejection into Success – Write Up A Plan

Once you learn the qualifications and experience approved to be successful by the employer, it’s then possible to formulate your plan. The plan should include the timeline and the target or goals to reach.

For instance, a time-consuming target, like getting more experience, significant educational qualifications like masters—if this is the case, it still gives you a clear achievement to work towards.

A plan may also involve revising and editing your CVs, resumes, and cover letters to have what employers want. This increases your success rates in future applications.

Assess Your Aspirations

The final chance rejection offers to individuals is the opportunity to focus and reassess your efforts. 

It’s unfortunate that not every goal is accomplishable, which may be hard to accept. But rejection can give you some clarity to know whether your qualifications line up with their strength and skill set.

You may seek help from experienced people in the industry like mentors or counselors if they think your targets or goals are realistic and achievable. This helps you identify areas to focus your strength on for prosperity.

Overcoming Rejection – The Bottom Line

Success is a bumpy road filled with rejection. 

Rejection can damage your self-esteem, cause physical pain, and take you through times. But, it can also provide an opportunity to try out something new.

Rejection can help you be creative and provide the fuel to power up your purpose and growth.