Overcome Rejection: The Smart Way

DR. RACHNA D. JAIN

Moonswept Press

20203 Goshen Road #374

Gaithersburg, MD 20879

Overcome Rejection: The SMART Way

www.OvercomeRejection.com

Copyright © 2006 by Rachna D. Jain PsyD LLC

Published by Moonswept Press, Inc.

20203 Goshen Road #374

Gaithersburg, MD 20879

www.moonsweptpress.com

Softcover ISBN-13: 978-0-9718629-8-2

eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-09718629-9-9

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for use of brief quotations in a review.

This material has been written and published solely for educational purposes. Neither the author nor the publisher shall have liability or responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss, damage or injury caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.

Editing, Layout & Cover Design:

The Roberts Group

www.editorialservice.com

Acknowledgments

No book comes together without a good idea, a lot of support, and sheer dedication to the act of writing. This book, particularly, was blessed by the care and support of some key people. Without these people, this book probably wouldn’t have made it past the idea stage, so I’d like to take a minute to acknowledge them here:

My Mom and Dad: For supporting my writing efforts even when you didn’t always understand them.

To my brother, Deepak: For your unending and unassailable confidence and support of me and my ideas.

To my husband, Mike: For being such a great cheering section and always believing in my abilities.

To Lynn: For your wisdom and grace.

To Michael Port: For your unending push to think, be, and do bigger.

To Mitch Myerson: For your structuring, which helped me break through.

To Andrea Lee: For always giving me a new perspective on any situation.

To Suzanne Falter-Barns: For teaching me the importance of moving toward my dreams.

To Abraham-Hicks: For reminding me of what I knew to be true anyway.

To the Roberts Group: For bringing this book to life, just as I’d envisioned.

There may be others who I didn’t mention here; that doesn’t mean your contribution was any less valuable or important. Thank you for all you have done and continue to do for me.

And, finally, I’d like to thank you, dear reader, for being willing to learn and grow from the information shared in these pages.

My wish for you is that you be masterful at overcoming rejection. Passionately seek out everything you’ve always wanted, but might have been too afraid to go for. This is the best measure of life, well lived.

Rachna

May 23, 2006

CONTENTS

Claim a Different Belief System

"If you don’t act now while it’s fresh in your mind,

it will probably join the list of things you were always

going to do but never got around to.

Chances are you’ll also miss some opportunities."

—Paul Clitheroe, Founder, IPAC

The conscious choice to overcome rejection is one of the most valuable and significant life choices you can make. Your capacity to overcome rejection directly determines the actions you take and the outcomes you achieve. Nobody wants to be rejected. Since rejection can’t be planned for or protected against (though the possibility of rejection can be minimized), wouldn’t it be terrific to find a method to rejection proof yourself? Having this method would allow you to reach bigger goals more easily. What could you achieve if you weren’t afraid of rejection?

Rejection, real or imagined, is the single biggest reason people don’t reach their goals. As a psychologist and consultant, I have seen fear of rejection derail the most promising entrepreneurs, salespeople, students, and single adults. While each of these people feared a different kind of rejection, there were definite similarities in their experience. In all cases, these people set a clear goal and began to make progress toward it, but when they met with unexpected failure or negative reactions, all progress toward the goal stopped, completely and utterly.

This got me thinking about the underpinnings of rejection—how and why we feel rejected, and how and why this fear keeps us from stepping fully into our own greatness. Most of us on this planet would like to feel that we are here for a purpose—for a mission— and that our lives and the way we live them will truly make a difference. We all want to leave this world a better place—just by having lived.

Yet, again, and again, bright, talented, motivated people find it difficult and challenging to reach their fullest potential, because they are caught up in worrying about what others will think and say. At the basis of all rejection is a huge need to be liked, admired, and respected.

Though I’m not an evolutionary psychologist, the research I’ve read suggests that the strong desire we have to affiliate with others has its roots in early civilization— if you didn’t belong, if you weren’t one of the tribe, you were cast out. Life in prehistoric times was dangerous and uncertain. Your chances of survival were much better if you were part of a group. Obviously, this early evolutionary drive was critically important for survival—and may demonstrate the early foundations of our need to belong.

Now, we fast-forward thousands of years, and we still feel a need to belong. Granted, there are no wooly mammoths to fight, and we certainly can live with a greater degree of solitude and separateness than our ancestors. However, we haven’t gotten over our predisposition to be connected and part of a community.

I think community and a sense of belonging, a feeling that we fit with the people around us, is important—and also potentially stifling. The concept of rejection takes on a new meaning and has a hidden edge when you consider: where does community end and stifling begin? Stated another way: is our need to be liked and valued and admired and respected keeping us from heeding our callings and finding our own paths through uncharted, potentially dangerous terrain?

As someone who has had a fair degree of success and also has experienced a fair degree of rejection, I’m looking forward to guiding you to becoming more resilient so you, too, can thrive after no.

It is important to remember that rejection is a part of life. None of us could know success if we didn’t first experience failure. Unfortunately, many of us are not well equipped with tools or techniques for dealing with rejection. There are many people who dream of achieving great outcomes but get derailed in the process. They may start out with high hopes and big dreams, which, unfortunately, get washed away or diminished by the internal experience of feeling rejected. In spite of all the great discoveries in the world, I suspect that there would be even more great discoveries—if the people who had stopped trying knew better how to turn rejection into success.

Let’s start by defining rejection. What is it?

Rejection, simply defined, means that someone says no to what you offer; and this no causes you to feel a negative emotion. My dictionary defines the word reject as to refuse to believe, submit, accept and, also, to refuse to grant affection to a person. While each of these are presented as different definitions, I actually believe they are both true. For rejection to exist, someone must refuse what you have to offer, AND it has to feel (to you) like an emotionally negative response.

You can’t feel rejected about things you don’t care about. So, in essence, rejection can offer a guidepost or a framework of understanding to what is truly important to you. The sting of the rejection is directly proportional to how important the desired goal or outcome truly is.

When someone says no to what we offer, it usually activates a place in each of us where we carry our own secret fears. This fear place is filled with questions and negative thoughts; it’s a repository of past experiences and negative beliefs, which we fear to be true. From this place arises conversations such as, I’m never going to succeed or I’m just not attractive enough or Why would they pick me? The good news is that we all have this place inside us. It’s one of those commonalities that ties together being human. The bad news is that this fearful place can stunt our growth, keep us playing small, and prevent the full offering of our own unique gifts in our natural lifetime.

There are some people who have felt so rejected on so many levels from so early in life that they never quite recover. At the same time, there are many examples of people who have been rejected, just as often and just as profoundly, and have triumphed anyway. Sometimes, complete and utter rejection of all you are can help you tap into your own indomitable spirit and rise above the day-to-day constraints to step fully into your own power. For most of us, though, we probably walk around with a mixed amount of self-acceptance and self-rejection. There are some aspects in ourselves which we prize, and some aspects of ourselves we wish would just go away. For people who have mixed experiences about themselves, rejection is much harder to feel and move on from.

I suspect this has something to do with the fact that, when you know you have some strengths, and you know you have some weaknesses, it’s hard for your strengths to accept your weaknesses and for your weaknesses to accept your strengths. It’s much easier, overall, to view yourself through one lens—in an all or nothing kind of way—than it is to hold and work through the complexity of both being all AND nothing. In other words, it is easier to wish we were all assets, yet fear we are all deficits, than it is to see ourselves as blended people, consisting of both assets and deficits.

You see this often in people who are incredibly gifted in a particular way. For example, people who are incredibly beautiful or attractive tend to either see themselves as beautiful all the way through or they see their beauty as an asset, but all their other attributes as negative.

When you are rejected on something you’ve recognized as a strength, there is a 50/50 chance that you will take this rejection more deeply or you will actually recover from it more quickly.

According to my clinical and consulting experiences, people who are rejected on a trait or offering that has been widely praised and accepted tend to find it easier to dismiss negative criticism than when they are rejected on a trait that has not been so widely accepted. For example, a handsome man might find it easier to let go of being seen as unattractive, but if he has always had secret doubts about his intelligence, he might find it more difficult to let go of being seen as not smart. What constitutes rejection for people tends to cluster in their own negative beliefs and fears about themselves.

So, now, we see that rejection touches our own negative beliefs about ourselves and tends to feel worse when the desired goal is something that truly matters to us.

It’s also important to note that our negative places are formed early on—through the crucible of our childhood experiences and our creation of meaning about those experiences. If you grew up in a home where intelligence was highly prized, yet you were always compared unfavorably to your older sibling, you will be more sensitive to any potential slights or criticisms related to your intelligence. Any random or stray comment about intelligence will activate this hot button in you, and you probably will find yourself overreacting to events or situations. You then might feel silly or odd for having reacted so strongly.

It is completely normal to react strongly when a fear of ours has been activated. A good exercise to do, then, is to think about what your worst fears are, and how these fears can keep you caught in a cycle of feeling rejected and over-reacting.

Your Worst Fears

When you think about your worst fears of yourself, what comes to mind? You probably have three or four thoughts that constantly play in the background of your thoughts and reactions. For most people, these types of thoughts tend to cluster around looks, smarts, ability, and the reaction of others. We worry, often, about being pretty enough, handsome enough, or smart enough. We worry about accomplishing what we want to accomplish and about what other people will think, say, or feel about who we are and what we do.

The constant awareness of our own fears can sometimes make the space in our heads feel crowded. We draw quick conclusions and live lifetimes of rejection over and over. We slowly turn our attention away from our brilliance and gifts and talents, and shine the beam more brightly on what we see as our flaws. When all we focus on are flaws, then, of course, we will feel flawed.

EXERCISE: UNCOVERING YOUR WORST FEARS

What are your worst fears about yourself?

How have these worst fears impacted your life?

Are you ready to let go of these fears and claim a different belief system?

Adopt a Different Belief System

Now, that you have defined your worst fears, let’s look at ways to overcome them by claiming a different belief system. Try one or several of these techniques:

Act as if. This technique refers to acting as if you believe, even when you don’t. It can be a powerful tool for trying on the persona of someone who believes that she or he is powerful and confident. If you imagine how a confident or powerful person would act, and then you act in the same way, you will, effectively, be training your mind and body to respond this way in the future. Acting as if is a powerful way of anchoring your desired behavior into your body and mind. Combined with visualizations and affirmations, acting as if can be a potent tool in reworking your belief system.

Borrow from your most admired person. Similar to acting as if, borrowing from your most admired person involves you thinking of someone whom you admire. This person can be anyone—a relative, mentor, colleague, or someone famous (alive or dead). The way this tool works is for you to think of this most admired person and ask yourself, How would [this person] behave in this situation? Then, you behave the same way. This is another powerful way to anchor a new belief system in a short amount of time.

Look for contradictory evidence. Most of the time, we focus our attention on looking for evidence to support our existing beliefs. This works great—when our existing beliefs are empowering and uplifting. When they are negative, looking for evidence to support them can be detrimental to our personal development and evolution. If you want to claim a different belief system, start looking for evidence that contradicts what you already know. If you secretly fear that you’re not smart, you probably have an ingrained pattern of looking for proof that you’re not smart. For just three days, start looking for any and all evidence that contradicts your negative belief. If you look for it, you will find it.

Ask for acknowledgments. Acknowledgments are statements about you, made by others, which emphasize or