Rejection

Nobody likes rejection. It sucks. Whether personally or professionally, it can make you feel worthless and make you question yourself or what you have to offer a school or job. It can make you compare yourself to others and wonder what the others had that you didn't. At one time, or many, we have felt the bitch slap of rejection. After all, rejection is part of life. I think the amazing part of rejection is how that individual responds. For me, it's been a learning process, but I am confident to say that today I am in the phase of accepting rejection by seeing it as something good. As I look back on all the instances I have been rejected, I can see myself coping with any of the following:

Rejection Doesn't Have to Be Scary 
Receiving hundreds of rejection letters from social work agencies, non-profits and other jobs I may have applied for was frustrating. I had the experience, I had the degree, but why weren't these people hiring me? I can see now that I was being re-directed, towards something better, in life. I accepted a position that allows me to share my love of swimming and active lifestyle with kids of all ages. Sure, it may not be what my degree is in, but for time being, it's what I love. So, maybe receiving all those rejections was a good thing.

You Can't Be Everything to People, And That's Okay!
Don't chase people in life. Work hard and be you. Live a life that makes you happy, not trying to conform into what makes someone else happy. The right people who belong in your life will come find you and stay. You do you. This is something I continue to work on. Life's a mess, but you learn a lot through the messiness. If someone doesn't appreciate the way you talk or how much you talk, your compassion and caring for all people, then sucks for them, they just let a great person go. Rejection doesn't mean you aren't good enough; it means the other person failed to see what you have to offer.

Build Up Tolerance
After receiving the first, I don't know, say thirty job rejections, I was over it. The more you put yourself out there and be vulnerable to others and receive feedback and criticism, the more you'll build up that tolerance. You'll get to a point, that I did in jobs, where it doesn't hurt when another e-mail comes in and rejects you. Oprah Winfrey said, "I don't want anyone who doesn't want me."

Sometimes We Need a Reminder That We're Human
And sometimes being human sucks. Humans all fear rejection, want attention, crave affection, and dreams of perfection. We're human. We have flaws but those flaws are what makes us, us. Rejection sometimes bumps us out of something that we thought was great and humbles us to see that, yes, we are still human.

It Allows You to (Finally) Stop Obsessing 
In relationships, the question of what are we? Was that a date? Are we a thing? Will he call? Should I call? Does he think I'm annoying? Should I have said or done something differently? We can drive ourselves insane trying to figure out what the other person is feeling of thinking about us. Getting an honest "I'm not into you" or "You're smothering me" is a great way to stop the obsessing. Now we can move on. For me, it's like a big, THANK YOU. It's one less thing I can obsess over.

Your Creative Juices Start Flowing - It Makes a Good Story
I was rejected today...Guess what I did. I wrote a blog post about rejection. The best time, for me, to feel my creative juices running through me is after something bad happens. Today, rejection. And it's not bad, it's God's way of telling me He has a different door. Rejection allows you to open up your mind to emotions and feelings that you may not have had access to while content. Give yourself a chance to grieve, then allow yourself to have amazing rejection-inspired creativity.

I leave you with this:
"Trust that when the answer is no, there's a better yes down the road."