Rejection highlights the same brain areas as physical pain....here's how to deal....
How to Handle REJECTION
You can never succeed in any aspect of life without risking rejection. Everyone experiences it multiple times throughout their life—it’s a normal part of the human experience. That being said…it still doesn’t feel good. Rejection can feel like all of your plans are ruined and your entire world is upside down. It can hit your mental health really hard and make it challenging to want to get back up and try again. Rejection multiple times in a row can feel like you’ll never succeed no matter how many times you try.
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1. First try and ground yourself. It can be easy to be swept up and away by the intense negative emotions rejection elicits. Rejection feelings can tell you you have no self worth, that you’ll never succeed, and that you shouldn’t even attempt to try again—none of which is true. Of course it FEELS like it’s all true, but that’s just your brain playing tricks on you.
Try some deep breathing to relax your heart and lower your cortisol levels (stress hormone). Verbalize your struggles to a loved one and hear what they have to say about the reality of your situation. Exercise to destress and release feel-good endorphins in your body. Once you feel more level-headed, you can really make some progress healing and moving on from the initial rejection.
2. Figure out what went wrong. Were there extraneous factors out of your control that contributed to the rejection? Are there factors within your control that you could use in the future to increase your chances of success? There was a psychology study done about college acceptance rates showing that students were more likely to be accepted on beautiful sunny days than cloudy gloomy days (Look for reference). Sometimes rejection can really be just bad luck. It’s unfair but a good way to look at it is that the rejection had nothing to do with your own self worth or qualifications. If you were rejected by a specific individual instead of defining your worth on the basis of them either wanting or not wanting you try and shift your perspective. That person did not see your worth, they did not give you the love you deserved, them rejecting you was a blessing in disguise because now you can move on to someone who DOES see your worth.
If you weren’t selected as a job candidate after getting an interview it doesn’t mean you couldn’t succeed at the job. Interviews have been found to have an extremely low rate of predictability in regards to job performance—they’re really just about the interviewer’s own biases and personal preferences. So apply to a similar position somewhere else until you feel seen and valued by those within the company.
The bottom line here is that no matter who, what, where, when, why, and how you were rejected you have control over how you react to it and what you do next.
3. Make a new action plan. Every amazing plan has several backups just in case something goes wrong. So what’s your plan B? Now that we understand that a lot of rejection can be because of chance or factors not within your control it’s good to have as many plans as possible to increase your chances of success and decrease chances of rejection. You can never fully rule out rejection but you can minimize it through careful planning. Even with countless plans things may not work out for awhile, but that’s okay. The most important piece to understand is that as long as you are trying then you aren’t a failure. To quote Little Miss Sunshine “winners risk failure losers never try”.
An action plan could look like applying to multiple schools and having backups and reaches. Or having a part time job to fall back on if you can’t get the position you want. Spending time with friends can help you to not feel alone while struggling within the dating realm. The list goes on…as yours should too.
4. Rinse and repeat. Life is unpredictable. Things aren’t always going to go your way no matter how hard you try to get them to. So you may have to do the same plan over and over again. Try and define and tweak things as you go to change your approach a bit each time. You never know what might work! Thoughts have power, it’s important to believe in yourself and surround yourself with people who believe in you (if possible). The most important factor to success is yourself. -
Your thoughts have a lot of power. The way in which you think about your experience can change how you feel and behave. So even if you’ve been able to calm down enough to figure out what went wrong and try and fix it it may not be as easy as it sounds. Let’s look at a few more internal aspects that might aid in your emotional regulation.
1. How are you treating yourself? Are you calling yourself a loser, or failure? Are you treating yourself with kindness and understanding? A lot of the times it’s easy to fall into negative self-talk when things don’t work out ideally, but that can actually perpetuate the current issue. If your thoughts have power, if you think and talk about yourself negatively can make you feel bad or sad, and feelings can be mistaken for reality. You feel like a loser therefore you are one right? Wrong. It might not FEEL like you’re a winner but you are…you can’t feel good things unless you think good things so let’s start internally.
2. Do you feel in control or unstable? Just like before when we discusses extraneous variables and other uncontrollable factors a lot of what makes us feel unstable has to do with our confidence. If you feel confident in your own abilities, self, and feelings it can make dealing with huge changes and rejections a lot easier. Understanding your own locus of control will help to add some more stability back in your life. Life itself is unstable but you don’t have to be!
3. Feel everything and THEN move on. The feelings you have in response to a rejection are valid. Pushing them down and telling yourself to move on won’t work and could create future problems. Cry, be angry, be frustrated, be sad—feel it all. It’s all apart of the emotional regulation process and if they can’t go through the full cycle they can get stuck in your brain! Holding onto negative emotions doesn’t feel good, that’s why letting go is so important. But you can’t just know to let go and be aware it has to happen eventually…you have to get there on your own. The timeline looks different for everyone and that’s totally normal. Taking only a little bit is fine and so is taking a long time. Do what is best for you, feel all you need to feel, and find your own way to letting go and moving on. Just take care of yourself along the way. -
Remember that rejection doesn’t define your self worth. Rejection is a normal part of life that everyone experiences in different forms and timepoints. Compare your own struggle to yourself and your past struggles—it can help you see what you need, what you’ve done before, and what you can do better! This isn’t the end, this is just a new beginning.
References
https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/rejection
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a30719895/how-to-deal-with-rejection/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-teen-doctor/202001/the-3-best-ways-deal-rejection