How to Get the Most Out of Being Rejected

One of the phrases I hate most in this world that is hooked on overly positive messages is that everything happens for a reason. Because it’s just bullshit. Not everything happens for a reason. There are bad things happening to good people. There are terrible personal losses, unfortunate job losses, devastating heartbreaks — just to name a few common ones without mentioning the pandemic or the war in Ukraine — that don’t happen for a reason, and that don’t depend on your vibration and often have nothing to do with you as a person or the choices you made.

There are things we don’t deserve and we still face them. One of the most ordinary devastating experiences that happens to all of us is to be rejected. Not getting an invitation to a classmate’s birthday party, not getting the job that we applied for, not even getting a response for our book pitch, getting our business idea dismissed, being ghosted or dumped by someone who matters to us.

Rejection sucks. It hurts like hell.

Trying to put a positive spin on it, trying to explain why it happened for a reason can be extremely difficult. Rejection of any sort activates the same areas in the brain as physical pain — so it’s literally painful. Saying that it happened for a reason is just pouring salt on the wound — as if having a reason would take the pain away and not only gave us unnecessary responsibility for something that already feels out of control.

It’s futile to make sense of it, but we still need to move on and carry on with our life. And for this, embracing rejection and finding how it can be helpful — despite it not making any sense and not answering to any logic.

So what can rejection offer without trying to use toxic positivity to minimise the harm it causes?

Clarity

Waiting for a word after a job interview or waiting for a text message from your crush or partner is a dark place to be at. It is full of uncertainty, full of doubts — regardless of your level of self-esteem. If something or someone matters to you and you are waiting to be chosen by it or them, no amount of self-esteem can prepare you for the lows of potential rejection.

The uncertainty holds the possibility of a positive and a negative answer — both out of your control. That space where you are worrying and overthinking is obscure and already bad and naturally, you would expect a positive answer. Why would you apply for a job if you didn’t hope to get it? Why would you ask someone out on a date if you didn’t want to go out with them? You obviously have your hopes up but the uncertainty can be soul-crushing.

When you are rejected, you are out of it. Even if this is not what you hoped for, even if it hurts, now you know it. Now the wait is over. The answer is no longer unknown. The future is no longer obscure. It’s clear. It’s a no.

And it’s better to get a no as a response than waiting and being on stand-by mode. This is the first step to being able to move on.

Freedom

To be rejected is terrible and liberating at once. Holding onto something that is not happening is taking up a lot of headspace — occupying your thoughts and feelings.

Knowing that you don’t get that job will give you an opportunity to look for another one. Breaking up with your partner will give you the chance to meet someone new later down the line. Being ghosted by someone offers you the chance to meet someone else who can actually meet your needs.

Being rejected did not happen for a reason, or so that it can teach you some lesson — but you can still try to learn from it and find the silver lining somehow. Being liberated from the burden of something that is not for you — a job, a person, a relationship — is making room for something else, something hopefully better.

Strength

The most successful business owners often speak about how they had been rejected before they became successful. The best of the best even boast about how many times they failed before they got to the breakthrough.

In retrospect, this seems like a great success story, but living it can be a horrible experience. However, we do build up strength and resilience when we face rejection one after the other. The first rejection hurts a lot more than the 10th — mainly because we are very adaptive creatures, and we can get used to everything.

This resilience is built over time, rejection after rejection — but it will never make us bulletproof. If being rejected by someone you care about doesn’t affect you at all, either you never really cared or you are a psychopath. To care is human, to get hurt is just as human.

But getting used to how to handle it is also human — and we do get better at it.

Trust

The other reason why rejections hurt less over time, why the 10th ghosting feels less devastating than the first, is that we are not just getting more resilient, but also we have already experienced it and we know we can survive it.

The very fact that you put yourself out there, started a difficult conversation, applied for a job, asked out someone is speaking volumes about your courage. We are pain-avoidant, pleasure-seeking creatures, and we obviously want to avoid being hurt and rejected. To put yourself into a situation where you can get rejected is brave — and you should be proud of yourself.

This, combined with the faith that you will survive will give you a boost of self-esteem. Although this revelation will only come later, you will survive it and you will be fine. You need to trust that the worst part will be over soon and you will get over it, no matter how long it takes.

Control

In a lot of cases, rejection has nothing to do with you. It feels off, as you are the one being rejected, of course, it feels to be about you. But when you don’t get a certain job, it could also mean that there was luck involved and you just got unlucky, or that there were 10 more qualified people than you who were better suited and 9 out of them got rejected just like you. When your partner breaks up with you, it’s hard not to take it personally, but it’s not about you exclusively; it’s about the relationship, the different needs, the different goals that were simply not aligned.

Rejection means that you can take back the control over your life — and apply for other jobs, heal your broken parts, get to know someone better fitting your needs.

Sometimes not getting what we want is starting us on a journey to prepare us for something better down the line. Getting dumped can mean that you finally learn to create boundaries. Getting fired can force you to learn something new and find something meaningful to do in your life. Getting ghosted can suggest you suspend your neverending quest for love and focus on yourself for a while.

The thing is, life can be really hard. Rejection sucks. It hurts like hell and it seems you will never get over it. And many people experience it many times during their lives.

Just think about it. How many times did you feel it was the end of the world when you got a certain rejection? And how many times did your world really end? If you are reading this, I am sure the answer is zero. You survived. You are still here. There is still hope. And things will get better.

Just keep on doing what you do. Embrace rejection and try to make the most of it — and just grit your teeth and carry on. It will pass. Better days are coming. I promise you this.