Here's how to never get rejected

There is one foolproof way to never get rejected and here it is: don’t do anything, ever. Sorry if you were expecting something else but that is the only way.

Rejection is one of the most painful experiences for many of us. There are obvious things like being dumped or ghosted, but also that feeling of being mildly unwanted - people not replying to emails, friends cancelling plans - can trigger that hollow, frightening feeling. If you’re sensitive to rejection you will find all this hard.

Many of us try to avoid getting rejected

That’s the route we take out of this painful place. “How can I structure my life to avoid having to experience this again?” - that’s the plan we follow, consciously or not. On a surface level, maybe it makes sense. But there’s no healing likely to happen here because you’re avoiding what you fear. And when we avoid what we fear, we tend to start fearing it more.

The answer is... more rejection

Rejection sensitivity is something that tends to be the result of childhood trauma. So, the first step is investigating where that has come from and why it’s there. We all have a little sensitivity to rejection, but some of us can’t handle it. For those people (which used to be me too, by the way), when we get rejected, it destroys self-perception and self-worth and, frankly, makes it feel like life is not worth living.

This is a sign of a rejection sensitivity that has been amplified by trauma - and that needs some attention, whether you work with a coach or a therapist. But once you’ve started to heal that initial hurt, getting better at rejection involves being rejected more. Yes, really.

This is how you never get rejected

Condition yourself to be able to deal with the discomfort of rejection. Because if you can do that, you will never experience that absolute destruction that rejection can bring when we don’t feel like we can cope.

Right now, rejection is probably outside your comfort zone. So, any time it happens you will experience a lot of discomfort. But it’s only outside your comfort zone because you’ve been avoiding it. And if you get rejected a few times - and survive it (which you will) - you’re going to realise it isn’t the big bad wolf that it seems. You may start to see rejection very differently:

Rejection is redirection

This is the big mindset shift that takes the sting out of rejection. If you get rejected, it’s pretty useful. Because it means that the person/job/situation in question isn’t right for you. If you can start to see things that way then you’ll never really suffer with rejection.

Need a little help doing that? Resilience coaching can help. But to begin, work on your self-esteem. Having a compassionate inner voice and high self-esteem will allow you to stop judging yourself for being rejected and just observe it as a practical redirection instead. That means you’ll change how it feels to be rejected - you’ll be removing the shame, the embarrassment and any implications about your lovableness or self-worth. Instead, it’s just data you can use to make different choices.

Resilience means taking the smartest view on your life - and removing anything you’re putting in your own way (knowingly or not) that is making it harder. The way you view rejection is a great example of how this works and how these tools can help you switch from a painful struggle to rational calm.