Why Every Rejection Is a Gift
Hearing ‘no’ can be a good thing
A few weeks ago, I taught my first course on one of the fundamentals of a freelance writing career: pitching. As much strategy as substance, a good pitch is the gateway to a successful freelance career. But, I told my students, regardless of how skilled you are at the art of pitching, rejection is inevitable. Often for powers beyond our control and sometimes for powers within our control (Who among us hasn’t fired off a half-baked idea?), we’ll get a pass on a story that we swore was a winner.
And these rejections hurt, regardless of experience and length of your career. No one wants to hear their ideas aren’t great, but rejections can help make us more resilient. Research shows when people are able to specifically describe their negative emotions associated with the rejection — I feel really anxious, I’m never going to work again or I’m frustrated because I think this is a really compelling angle — the more they’re able to stay calm and avoid feeding into distress. Another study found that rejection forced people to shift their perspective from thinking about themselves to thinking about others.
Being able to identify why you’re hurt and thinking outside of yourself can enable you to take a more clear-minded approach to why you were rejected in the first place. A “no” in any aspect of…
