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Why does rejection hurt so much? And why does it hurt differently in different contexts? I’ve been applying to internships for the past few months, and I was surprised to find that rejection got easier as I went along.
It was almost as if the more people rejected me the less personal it felt. Perhaps I’m just learning to ignore it better. Whatever the case, I certainly think about the rejection differently than I did a few months ago.
Here are 3 key mindset differences I noticed in myself. They seem to have made rejection a lot easier to handle, and I hope they can help you in some way:
- Amount of time spent thinking about it. The first and biggest difference is simply how much time I spend thinking about the “loss” of a rejected application. I spend significantly less time, sometimes no time at all, focusing on the disappointment of not getting something. Though I’d like to claim this as a conscious effort on my part, it wasn’t. The more jobs I applied to, the less time I could give to thinking about any one job individually. But the result of that accidental shift–the thinking less about the losses–has made everything a lot easier.
- Confidence in the future. When I first started applying to internships, with each company I didn’t hear back from I’d become more and more concerned that maybe no one would want to hire me. Now, and perhaps it’s for no good reason, I kind of assume some internship is going to come through, as long as I keep working at it. I feel like if I continue to persevere, the right job will come along. I don’t have proof of this, and maybe I’m wrong, but at the least, the delusion is a great stress-reliever and great motivation to continue searching.
- Focusing on the potential. I almost enjoy applying for things at this point. And I think it’s because as I apply, I’m thinking about the reasons I would be excited to work for that company and the difference I feel I could make there. With mind-space freed up by steps 1 and 2, I have room to be excited about future possibilities. And being excited about future possibilities is a great help to enjoying the process now.
I hope you’ve found similar things helpful, and if you haven’t tried similar things, then I hope you’ll try some of these mind-shifts. They have certainly been helpful to me in guarding against the pain of rejection.
BoweryJE22
#2 is an important mindset to have when it comes to rejection. I think a lot of us get stuck in the present and pull up the past when we’re dealing with rejection, instead of taking a look at the larger picture. People who look at the bigger picture tend to be happier people overall, especially in sales. I definitely need to work on taking rejection more smoothly, and remembering that it’s a small thing in the large scheme of life!