How To Deal With Rejection

“If you don’t go up to bat, you can’t get a hit,” is a much-cited cliché. A corollary to this reality, is that, if you go up to bat and put yourself on the line, you won’t always get the job; the order; the client; the promotion; and/or the raise. No one always succeeds!

Knowing this, the questions to ask are: So, what happens when you get rejected? How do you deal with rejection? Do you handle it constructively and strategically; or do you let your toxic emotions cloud your best judgment and evaluative processes, and make a self-sabotaging career choice and thereafter act on it to your great detriment?

In my book, Your Killer Emotions:  The 7 Steps to Mastering the Toxic Emotions, Urges, and Impulses That Sabotage You, I discuss The ”7 Steps of Emotion Mastery,” which enable you to make highly beneficial workplace choices – free from sabotaging emotions and feelings, such as rejection. Here are some suggestions to accomplish this:

1. Don’t Make Emotional Decisions

First and foremost: DO NOT make an important decision or choice when you are overcome with feelings of rejection, hurt, embarrassment, disrespect, hopelessness,and the like. Always, stop, cool down, and, as they say, “take the pause that refreshes.” Additionally, DO NOT opt for an immediate, emotional quick fix, such as reacting destructively, lashing out, and/or retaliating.

Oftentimes, we opt for these short-term satisfactions, but in the big picture of our lives and careers, these unthinking, emotion-generated reactions are counter and highly detrimental to accomplishing what we truly want for our careers in the long term (our Gold Ring Dreams).

2. Learn Why You Were Rejected

Experiencing rejection is often the first step to attaining great success! The key to enjoying post-rejection success, is to openly, honestly, and toxic emotion-free, learn why you were rejected or didn’t attain your goal. Securing this feedback, is essential for you to adjust your mindset; fix your missteps; and enable you to develop a new, more appropriate, and effective game plan and set of behaviors. I cannot count how many times my clients didn’t get a position; learned from the process; and improved themselves.

At some point thereafter, they interviewed for a (better) position, with their new and improved arsenal of skills; nailed the interview, and secured a wonderful new position. As a result, the initial rejection – when viewed constructively – turned out to be an excellent learning experience; and a wonderful gift and blessing.

The P.E.P. Talk

This article is part of our P.E.P. Talk Series. Over the next month, some of the brightest and best authors, business professionals, and coaches are coming together to share their valuable advice for breaking free of “The Golden Handcuff Effect” so you can take full ownership of your careers and experience Professional Emancipation.

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