Any training designed to empower young entrepreneurs would be remiss if it didn’t include a lesson on coping with rejection. We all experience rejection and it isn’t often that we are taught how to cope with it.
7 Easy Tips for Getting Over Rejection
- Don’t take it personally. It isn’t about you or the quality of your work. Rejection in business and life is just of those pesky things we can’t avoid. What you do or are trying to do isn’t going to be a good fit with everyone. You just need to keep going.
- Don’t over think it. You’ll make yourself crazy and bring up all sorts of doubt.
- Get mad. By yourself. If you need to let it out, go somewhere no one will hear you or wonder what the yelling is all about. Just get it out. And then let it go and be done with it.
- Vent to a friend or family member or talk to someone on your dream team or success team. Someone who will listen to you gripe and offer you some ideas about how to improve your approach. Be sure to hear what they are saying to you.
- Write a letter that you’ll never send. Give all the reasons why you or your project should have been chosen. Then wait a day or two and read it. Chances are you won’t feel as strongly as you did when you wrote it. You might even laugh at yourself. But UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES do you email or send that letter! Don’t be tempted.
- Wait a week or two and then ask for constructive feedback from the person who turned you down. Send an email or call and be VERY POLITE and as friendly as you can be under the circumstances. Keep it simple. Just ask, “May I ask you why I was turned down?” Or whatever phrase fits here – refused, why did you say no?
- After you’ve dealt with the loss, start again. Never give up on your dream. Did you know that a lot of famous writers, actors and others have experienced rejection?
